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BLACK GOLD 




























BLACK GOLD 


BY 

GUY MORTON 

Author of “ Rangy Pete,” etc. 



BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 





Copyright 1924 

By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(Incorporated) y 





Printed in the United States of America 


THE GEO. H. ELLIS CO. 
INCOPORATED 
BOSTON, HASS. 

THE BOSTON BOOKBINDING CO HP ANY 
CAHBRIDGE, HASS. 


JUL 29 1924^ CL 

©C1A80029SL.X 




BLACK GOLD 


* 


\ 





BLACK GOLD 


CHAPTER I 
THE QUEST 

There was music in the swish of the paddle; but 
there was revolt in the pose of Rupert Harne as he 
sat in the bow of the canoe and looked moodily out 
over the placid expanse of the Copper River as it 
ambled its way to the South before him. 

At his back was the long-lived northern sun hugging 
close to the horizon’s rim, like a golden coin poised 
against the grey haze of a turquoise sky. All about 
was the strange conflict of the Alaskan night, and in 
the dying hues of the day-night there was a definite 
lingering flavor of something gone, like flowers that 
have been crushed and thrown aside. 

“Five years off the end of my life, Hart, for another 
year of this cursed Alaska now!” 

The words were outflung; for Harne spoke abruptly, 
as though mere thought could crystallize the vagrant 
currents of the past; but there was no answer, other 
than the soothing swish of the paddle as it rose and 
fell lightly in the hands of the man behind him. 

He had not looked for any answer, for this matter 


2 


BLACK GOLD 


had been thrashed out long ago; though that did not 
lessen the sting of defeat nor soften the fact that there 
was revolt in his brain against all those circumstances 
which were driving them out of the North. 

Harne looked slowly and measuredly about him, 
like one who bids farewell to old scenes. 

Already the northern sun, hugging close to the 
horizon’s rim, was slipping behind the tips of the 
Chitina, and with this warning of a decaying summer 
there was a vague, ineffable something which had 
stolen into the air, a harbinger of the iron-bound 
nights, the sunless days, when nature, smiling now, 
would be swept swiftly with the violence of anger. 
Here and there, by the river’s edge, where the dwarfed 
trees crowded back the rolling hills, the willows were 
already taking on the sickly yellow of age. In the air 
above, a flock of wild fowl droned their bullet-like way 
straight to the South, as though vitalizing the crisp 
expanse with the virility of a newer and a sterner life. 
Here, on the water-trail below, on the level of mankind, 
was a mystic glamour hushing the noiseless solitudes. 
There was this river, filled with liquid glacier, shining 
through the twilight like polished silver, ambling its 
way from the North to the blue Pacific, along those 
straits which the dominant hills prescribed. 

“Five years off the end of your life,” Hartley Garry 
spoke from the stern of the canoe. “Five years! 
It is a wonderful land . . . wonderful. . . . Yet 
damned!” 

Harne shivered. It was a wonderful land, this . . . 


THE QUEST 


3 


But damned. For it was the land which had brought 
to him his first real defeat, at the hands of man or of 
circumstances. 

It was easy to sit here now, caught in the drift of 
the drifting river, and watch those mileposts of the 
past as they floated up and before his vision. It was 
simple to picture himself as he had been three years 
ago when Swedevaris Pellinger, cold old money-king 
of the East, had believed in him. 

Even as Harne looked upon the growing twilight, 
he recalled how he had gone to Pellinger, fresh from 
his mining course, at the almost-tender years of twenty- 
five, with that double plea upon his lips. There was 
his adoration of Edith Pellinger, the daughter; and 
there was that great, vivid hope that he would find in 
the northland the coal-mining areas which would feed 
the half of a continent. He recalled how brilliant 
had been that vision. He could still feel some of the 
thrill of those days which three years in the North had 
hardened into a far-off youth; he remembered how 
Pellinger, shrewd and far-seeing, had been ready to 
finance him for this expedition; he could all but hear 
the words with which Swedevaris Pellinger had 
commended his resolution; he could see, even, the 
cold cynicism upon the lips of Ramsey Doolittle, 
money-king even as Pellinger was king, and he recalled 
how he laughed at the way in which Doolittle’s eyes 
wandered towards Edith Pellinger at the very moment 
he was speaking of the folly of Harne’s undertaking. 

It was clear to him now, like sharp vignettes cut 


4 


BLACK GOLD 


from the pages of memory. That was the past, poign¬ 
ant and goading; yet now it had become a tragedy, per¬ 
sonal and undoubted. For it could all be reduced 
to a few simple words. He had been given his chance, 
and he had failed. 

He had failed only to the extent that he and Hart¬ 
ley Garry had been the victims of circumstances. 
Three years, sacrificed upon the altar of the North, 
had not been enough to lure from the goddess of the 
hostile slopes the key to hidden wealth. Well, it was 
the end. 

“There is a chance that Pellinger will stretch the 
time a bit,” Garry suggested, as he had done a thou¬ 
sand times before. “He is a plunger. He has financed 
you for three years; surely he will add another, and 
without taking the price of five years ofiF the end of 
your life.” 

“Perhaps,” Harne conceded, “and in the mean¬ 
time, we go to Valdez. We bow, temporarily, to the 
goddess Defeat; and yet, were there Indian blood in 
my veins, I think I would say that my arrow had been 
lost in its flight to the sun. The face of the Manitou 
is turned against me.” 

They paddled, listlessly, drifting with the current of 
the river, watching, as they went, the glories of the 
twilight night, as though it were some friendship they 
were wounding with each stroke of the paddle’s blade. 
Along the placid stretches of the Copper they glided, 
past jagged rocks which broke at times into miniature 
rapids, past the dun walls of the river which stood out 


THE QUEST 


5 

sombre and uninviting against the brilliance of the sun¬ 
set. 

For an hour or more they traveled thus, until the 
rocky walls drew narrower, and far beyond they 
could see the break of the rapids. 

Garry rose to his knees and stared towards the 
crimson of the midnight sun. For a peculiar, 
distorted shaft of light had caught his gaze, a shaft 
which shot from below the horizon and reached far 
into the heavens above them. It seemed to reach 
upward like a broken arc, and immediately in front, 
in line with their eyes, was a great boulder by the 
river’s edge. 

“Your rainbow,” Garry exclaimed youthfully. “We 
have followed it for three years, but it is still shining.” 

Harne laughed easily. 

“Youth and imagination,” he returned; then a little 
exclamation slipped from his lips. 

When first he looked, there had been only the bar¬ 
ren rock jutting against the flame of sky. Yet 
now, upon the top of the cliff, there stood a human 
figure, wrapped in a halo of light. 

“The goddess of the rainbow, of course,” Garry de¬ 
cided. “Just one flick of her little finger and our for¬ 
tunes are made.” 

The figure was that of a girl, dressed in the garb of 
the Nootka Indians. She stood there, with arms out¬ 
stretched; and so confusing was the glow in the sky 
beyond, so fantastically did it play about the brown 
silhouette, that the girl’s feet seemed scarcely to touch 


6 


BLACK GOLD 


the face of the rock. Rather did it seem that she was 
poised in the air, that she stood out as the chrysalis of 
that flaming sunset, as the spirit of its death and of 
the crisper vitality of the north. 

“Just one little twist of the finger,” Garry muttered, 
half laughing. “She doesn’t seem to have seen us yet.” 

The girl’s arms were outstretched and suddenly she 
raised them above her head, in the spirit of worship, or 
as though trying in vain abandon to draw to herself 
all the intoxicating glory of the blazing sky. The tab¬ 
leau was a flaming one, filled with beauty; and even as 
Garry’s laugh rang out across the water, there came to 
them another sound. 

It was the cry of human voices. And in those 
voices was an echo which rang like the haunting cry of 
the chase. Then, in swift contrast, all the spirituality 
which had seemed to invest the girl was swept away. 
Her cloak of radiance fell, and she became subject to 
nature’s laws; she stumbled, then fell headlong. 

Down the grey face of the rock the body plunged. 
Then, with a sound which smote them sharply, it struck 
the water beneath. 

“She’ll drown!” Garry exclaimed, “after a fall like 
that.” 

Experience told him that close to the rock the cur¬ 
rent must be quick and deep, while onward, down the 
river had some hundreds of yards, it ran rumpling and 
treacherous towards the break of the rapids. 

Already the body was floating with the current, to¬ 
wards the rapids; and from the snarling of the water 


THE QUEST 


7 


as it broke upon the rocks, Garry knew that the pass¬ 
age was not one to be taken lightly or in the heat of 
rescue. 

It was not work for a canoe, for if the girl were to 
be saved, it must be through the daring of a man will¬ 
ing to risk the rapids below. 

“I will jump for her,” he decided. “Strike for that 
first cove, and throw me a rope.” 

“It was my rainbow,” Harne checked him with a 
gesture; and already he was slipping over the bow of 
the canoe into the chilling current. 

Harne caught the floating body at the fringe of the 
rapids, as it lodged for a moment against the shelving 
rocks; and for a brief instant he held the face to his. 
The eyes were closed and the flesh was cold; and then, 
with a little cry of protest, he fought the line of the 
rapids as they broke away towards the shore line. 

An outflung rope drew across his shoulder, and a 
minute later Harne was carrying the burden in his 
numbing arms from rock to rock as he followed the 
guiding of the rope held in Hartley Garry’s hands. At 
the brink of the river, where the last snarling of the 
rapids loosened its grip upon his limbs, Harne placed 
the still form upon a bed of tundra moss; and as the 
girl lay there, the brown of the cushioned moss blended 
with the faded tints of a Nootka face. 

She lay like death, human and appealing, with some 
of the pink of life still stealing through the bronze of 
her cheeks. She was in the garb of the Nootka In¬ 
dians, with face and hands as dark and stained as the 


8 


BLACK GOLD 


natives; but where the dress was torn away from the 
throat there was the gleaming patch of a skin as soft 
and white, as pure and clear-blooded as their own. 

“What a tragedy, in life as well as in death,” Garry 
muttered; and when Harne replied, his voice was 
harsh and strained. 

“Tragedy? It is the North. Poor girl. Who can 
she be?” 

He spoke, and stooped above her; and then he 
pressed his lips against hers as reverently as one kisses 
the face of a sleeping child. 

As he did so, the girl’s wide brown eyes opened in 
wonderment. 


CHAPTER II 


THE GIFT OF THE POTLATCH 

The girl’s eyes were brown and dreamy, and for a 
time they peered into Harne’s face with a mixture of 
weariness and wonder. Then amazement, incompre¬ 
hension, the fear of a child, became imprinted upon 
her features; and back of that was a touch of sadness. 

For long moments she stared into the man’s face, 
studying every line and curve; then abruptly she caught 
her hands before her eyes and began to sob bro¬ 
kenly. In that action was womanly emotion, a sorrow 
beyond her years, a tracery of sentiment which 
could not be all childish. 

“Ease up a bit, you little brown Iris,” Harne began, 
totally unprepared for the handling of tears. “You 
are not in the camp of the enemy, whoever that happens 
to be. Suppose you forget about the tears, and tell 
us where you live.” 

Then whimsically, as quickly as she had broken 
down, the girl became calm again. She brushed a 
hand across her eyes, and with a gesture of defiance 
she shook her head arrogantly. 

“ ’Tain’t that,” she burst out, “I ain’t afraid of you, 
but when I woke up I thought you was an angel. But 
you ain’t. Angels don’t wear whiskers, do they ? 

9 


IO 


BLACK GOLD 


And you’ve got clothes like the missioner up the river. 
But your eyes were so nice, I thought you must be an 
angel. You looked at me nicer than anybody’s done 
for a long while, unless it’s Old Maneto; and he’s an 
Indian.” 

Garry laughed with relief. 

“No. Old Rupe hasn’t qualified yet,” he offered, 
“unless it’s for the particular kind of angel you’re not 
talking about. So, young Iris, just give up the idea 
of promoting your esteemed servant.” 

“Who’s Iris?” the girl demanded. “That ain’t my 
name.” 

“It fits, for the lack of anything better,” Harne 
replied. “You see, we have become rapidly converted 
to believe in legends and rainbows. While we haven’t 
found the Golden Fleece, we seem to have found the 
Brown Hide.” 

“Legend? What’s that?” the brown-eyed one de¬ 
manded. “The missioner never told me about that. 
He never talks the way you do, but I guess that’s be¬ 
cause I poke fun at him. You seem to screw up your 
eyes and laugh when you talk, and he always looks 
like he’s sorry for somebody. He says I’m a little 
brown witch and that my soul’s gone to damnation. 
What’s that?” 

“It means, I think, that he is a dub missionary,” 
Harne decided. “But let us forget that long enough 
to find out how you got here, and mostly how you are 
going to get back again, wherever that is.” 

“Oh, me. I don’t count. I’ll be right fit when I 


THE GIFT OF THE POTLATCH 


ii 


dry out. You fellows go ’long your ways, and I’ll 
get back home. But I’m right glad I met you, ’cause 
there ain’t many nice people come up this way. . . .” 

The words broke sharply, and the girl bent her 
head quickly to listen through the rarefied night. For 
there was ringing once more in the ears of all the 
long-drawn cry of a human voice. It came more like 
the wail of sorrow than the utterance of any single 
word, and it struck all the more forcibly because of 
the sudden shrinking in the girl’s manner and the 
startled gleam in her brown eyes. 

Then the bronzed hands reached out impulsively to¬ 
wards Harne’s shoulders. 

“What is it, child?” he exclaimed. 

“Nothing but Old Maneto and Dad,” she replied 
sullenly. “They’ll tell you where I live, all right.” 

Suddenly the girl’s lightness returned. She looked 
into Harne’s eyes and smiled; and if fright there had 
been, it was swiftly swept aside. 

“I guess I scared you,” she said. “I ain’t got over 
my ducking yet, and it made me jump when Old 
Maneto yelled like that. You’d better yell back, for 
it’s me they’re looking for.” 

Two figures were outlined upon the cliff which 
frowned by the river’s edge; and even at first glance 
Harne knew them for an Indian and a white. 

At the brink the men paused; they dropped upon 
their knees to peer into the current below, as if 
through instinct they divined a tragedy. The Indian 
sprang to his feet, and with arms raised to the dulling 


12 


BLACK GOLD 


sky, he sent out once more upon the keen air the 
leaping wail of death. 

“He thinks I’m a gonner,” the girl whispered; and 
Harne was conscious of a queer sensation because of 
the strange delight in her eyes. 

But before he could do more than wonder at the 
mood, the white man upon the rock was pointing out 
their position to the Indian. 

Maneto, the Indian, outran the white, and when he 
burst upon them, it was plain that the characteristic 
stoicism of his race had broken down temporarily 
beneath some strain. Though well up in years, the 
Nootka was still straight and athletic, with a definite 
amount of command and personality in his bear¬ 
ing, and now, in one quick glance, his narrow, snap¬ 
ping eyes seemed to embrace them all . . . the girl’s 
wet garments, the man’s sodden clothing, the canoe, 
the rapids which began to fall away almost at their 
feet. Then his alert gaze swung back to the cliff 
by the river’s edge. 

“You’re right, Maneto,” the white was the first to 
speak, “that is just what happened. She ... ah 
. . . fell from the rock, and this gentleman was for¬ 
tunate enough to save her from the rapids.” Then, 
turning to Harne, he added, “To whom are we in¬ 
debted for this kindness which gave us back the life 
of our little Marcile?” 

Even while conscious of a certain culture in the 
man's manner, Harne noted with a touch of anger 
that after the Indian’s first eagerness, neither paid any 


THE GIFT OF THE POTLATCH 


13 


attention to the girl. Marcile, in her turn, lay back 
upon her elbows, and a certain bold, reckless defi¬ 
ance was leaping from her eyes. 

“1 am called Rupert Harne,” he replied shortly, 
“voyageur, gentleman, and what not. All you call it 
here in the North. And my partner here is Hartley 
Garry. We are only too glad to have saved Marcile.” 

“The language of a gentleman, though a bit worn 
in the looks,” the white returned. “Yet all we pros¬ 
pectors come to the same end.” 

Studying the face of the white man before him, the 
first theory which rushed to Harne’s brain was that 
he belonged to that breed of unclassified men, whose 
numbers were all too many, who had drifted into the 
North on the high tide of its fortune, and who had 
remained stranded there, devoid of ethics or ambi¬ 
tion. Outwardly, the man was much like any other 
prospector of the hills, being distinguished by a care¬ 
lessness of costume and a certain air of braggadocio. 
His pose was that of accustomed self-gratification, of 
arrogant rule, of the imposition of one man’s will to 
the exclusion of others; and though Harne’s hostility 
was aroused in some inexplicable manner, he tried to 
overlook the abrupt arrogance. 

“From Tanana, I suppose,” the stranger continued. 
“You look about as wealthy, or about as poor, as 
some others I’ve seen from up that way. It’s only 
greenhorns who look for gold there, as I could have 
told them if they had been wise enough to ask me.” 

“Sort of oracle ?” Harne returned, as he fought for 


H 


BLACK GOLD 


a grip upon his hostility. “No, it wasn’t Tanana. 
And it wasn’t gold.” 

The obvious unpleasantness was a shock to Harne, 
who had come to look upon the casual wanderer of 
the trails as an oasis in the desert of humanity; yet 
this attitude of the stranger, so strikingly in contrast 
with what the circumstances might have produced, but 
tended now to sooth his rising anger. 

“Going to Valdez?” the white asked a moment 
later. 

“Perhaps we will first see that Marcile gets home.” 

“Who is going to show you the way?” the man 
demanded, half-angered, half-shamed at the failure of 
his insolence. 

“She might,” Harne attempted a placating smile. 

Maneto turned about, with the beckoning of author¬ 
ity in his manner, lifted the girl to her feet, and 
led the way in silence down the river-bank; the 
white followed, but in his attitude there was no 
encouragement. 

“I move that we accept that wave of the old boy’s 
arm as an invitation,” Garry proposed. “It was at 
least friendly. Besides, who knows? Adventure 
may be beckoning. Remember your rainbow.” 

“Youth and Folly, lead on,” Harne agreed. 

Maneto’s winding course followed the general line 
of the river, past the rapids and through the dwarfed 
clusters of alder; and when the white stranger glanced 
from time to time across his shoulder, he seemed to 


THE GIFT OF THE POTLATCH 15 

be struggling with the conflict of desires. At length 
he dropped back, and for a period he walked in silence 
at Harne’s side. When he spoke his voice had swung 
over from rudeness to humanity. 

“Don’t think I am not grateful/’ he said, “but 
this is a straight warning I am giving you. Keep 
out. Maneto is a bad Indian. He doesn’t take to 
strangers.” 

Harne nodded in agreement. 

“Looks bad, like a Christmas tree,” he admitted. 
“Why vilify the old boy’s character, for if he isn’t 
a good sort he is at least a good actor.” 

An explosive disgust slipped from the other’s lips. 

“Take it or leave it,” he returned impatiently, “I’m 
warning you, that’s all. My skirts are clean.” 

“You make me curious,” Harne confessed. “I have 
seen considerable Nootkas in my time, and a rough 
one is about the last thing I have on my list. Sup¬ 
pose you drop the mask, stranger, and let me get one 
real good peep at that friendly heart of yours.” 

Silence again, while they tramped the pathway laid 
by the Nootka’s feet; and when they came to a little 
cluster of willows the stranger looked about cautiously, 
and drew closer, as though to stage some mystery. 

“The Nootkas are queer ones,” he reflected. “What 
do you say if we go dickers on this?” 

Harne faced the other squarely, but he kept the 
astonishment from his countenance. 

“In the language of the land, I don’t get you,” he 


i6 


BLACK GOLD 


returned calmly. “What there is for us to go dickers 
on is more than I can imagine. Come across with the 
idea, and we may get somewhere.” 

The other merely grumbled some inaudible reply and 
tramped on. As Harne kept pace at his side, his won¬ 
der grew. First, there had been insolence; now there 
was this insinuation even more difficult to understand 
than the hostility had been. 

“Who are you?” Harne came out of his reverie 
abruptly, “and what are you doing in the North?” 

“Answering the second question first, I’ll say that 
is something for you to find out,” the stranger showed 
no astonishment. “As to the first, my name is Abner 
Gilvert, and I’m prospector, voyageur and what not, 
all you called yourself a moment ago.” 

“Sounds interesting, Mr. Gilvert,” Harne admitted. 
“But what is the little mystery snuggling around that 
dicker of yours?” 

Gilvert laughed in a friendly way. 

“Wrong track, perhaps. I’ll think it over again.” 

Harne did not attempt to reply, and soon they came 
to a Nootka village hugging so close to the foothills 
that its bark houses rested against the base of cliffs 
by the river’s edge. Clustering about the small dwell¬ 
ings were the silver birches, splashed with the heavy 
green of spruce and the polar tint of Oregon alder. 
In this moment it seemed to Harne to be one of the 
most picturesque corners of the world he had ever 
seen. He knew that in the broad light of day it 
would be drab enough, but now, under the softening 


THE GIFT OF THE POTLATCH ly 


light, it was cleansed of all its rudeness, for though it 
was near midnight, the sky was still clear and crimson 
in the west, and mellowing the whole atmosphere was a 
soft, southern twilight. 

Abruptly, through the silence, there came a long- 
drawn cry in the Nootka tongue. It was old Maneto, 
calling to his tribe his imperial summons. 

Harne became conscious of sudden activity in the 
huts of the Indians; but Abner Gilvert deliberately 
turned his back upon the scene. 

“Down yonder you see two huts,” he volunteered, 
“that’s my shebang, where me and my girl Marcile 
hangs out. The Nootkas stick to the hills, but give 
me the water. . . . Strange bird, old Maneto. Looks 
as though he was going to rout out the whole tribe. 
Know what it means?” 

Gilvert’s voice was casual, a trifle too casual; so 
Harne found himself searching for the under-current 
of significance. 

“Can’t say that I do,” he admitted. “They are a 
bit ceremonious to-night, a trifle more than I ever 
saw them before.” 

Gilvert stole a curious glance at him, then looked 
away. For a time, as far as Harne could judge, the 
man gave his full attention in an interested and per¬ 
sonal manner to the strange actions of the Nootkas. 

“About that dicker,” he suggested at length, “we 
may as well go through with it now.” 

“I seldom go through with anything without know¬ 
ing what it is,” Harne reminded. “A weakness of 


i8 


BLACK GOLD 


mine, I suppose. I have queer streaks like that. But 
suppose you come down to earth and talk my 
language.” 

This time Gil vert eyed him fairly, with frankness 
in his manner. 

“You say you didn’t mooch along here for gold?” 
he asked. 

“You got me right, stranger.” 

“Then if I guess it the first time will you ad¬ 
mit it?” 

“It seems to be the only way to understand what 
we’re talking about,” Harne conceded. “Guess away.” 

“First, I will tell you I have been picking around 
this valley all summer looking for coal deposits,” 
Gilvert admitted, with a frankness which seemed 
surprising. “Now, admit it. You’re after the 
same. . . 

“Why deny the obvious ?” Harne asked. “But what 
has that to do with the dicker you talked about?” 

“Just this. I’m giving away a pet secret when I 
say I know there must be coal along the Copper some¬ 
where, and I think that tight-lipped boy, Maneto, 
knows where it is. You get me now?” 

“Just half of it. What is the rest?” 

“I have been here all summer and haven’t found 
the deposit. Winter is coming along now, so you 
won’t find it, unless . . .” 

“Go on,” Harne urged. 

“If Maneto knows, you can twist it out of him. 
He seems to be a bit taken with you for having saved 


THE GIFT OF THE POTLATCH 


19 

Marcile’s life. He doesn’t show it, but he is. Sly 
ones, these Nootkas.” 

From the bare words, Gilvert’s argument was sane 
enough; yet, back of the warning, there were cunning 
little ,shiftings in his eyes. 

“Doubtless, but where do you come into it ?” Harne 
asked. 

“We work together, to squeeze the secret out of 
Maneto. Then we split.” 

Past Gilvert’s shoulder there was the swarming of 
the Nootkas, herding from their huts and deploying 
over a broad, flat area in the center of the village. 
There was hurrying about, and the collecting of fire¬ 
wood ; and there was some strange scene being enacted 
about a totem pole at one edge of the compound. 
Back of that was the message of a ceremony which 
seemed but a traditional trait of the northern tribes, 
of which Harne had heard all manner of disturbing 
stories, but which he had never witnessed. 

So he laughed abruptly. 

“Sorry, Gilvert,” he decided. “We can talk it over 
to-morrow.” 

“But it must be to-night,” Gilvert protested. 

Harne turned away, conscious, as he went, of the 
keen eyes of Gilvert turned upon him; and when he 
strolled about the village compound, he detected little 
betraying signs which began to give body and mean¬ 
ing to the seemingly aimless activity of the Nootkas. 

“Rather bright, Gilvert,” he complimented the 
shadow which followed. “You just failed in your 


20 


BLACK GOLD 


purpose. That, if I am any judge of tradition, is the 
beginning of the potlatch dance.” 

He had heard of the potlatch, a Nootka ritual which 
even the tellers of its stories had defined as mostly 
mythical; but now all about him were the evidences of 
reality. The Potlatch; the heart-opener of the Noot- 
kas, the giving of a gift for a gift, the baring of the 
heart in gratitude! 

“The Potlatch, Gilvert,” he repeated; and the other 
turned away with a scowl which he barely noticed. 

For Maneto had taken up his place by the totem 
pole, and as he threw out his arms with an imperious 
gesture, the Nootkas swept into the slow rhythm of the 
dance. With an abrupt, mechanical exactitude, as 
though the scene had been rehearsed a hundred times, 
the half-garbed, naked-limbed Nootkas broke into the 
swinging movement of some living poem, and smiles 
leaped out on faces which before had been lifeless 
masks. 

Harne dropped upon a rock, buried his chin in his 
hands and gave himself up entirely to the magnetic 
sway of those semi-barbaric feet. The strange, in¬ 
tense sorcery of the midnight gloom began to creep 
through his veins like molten fire, gripping him with 
some of the intimacy of the primitive belief, until 
after a time he felt the primal call of barbarity deep 
down in the blood of all. 

It was true, after all, this whirling dance. It was 
dramatically real to these childish minds. There was 
premonition in it. It was the natural sequence to 


THE GIFT OF THE POTLATCH 


21 


Hartley Garry’s whim, that it was the goddess Iris 
who had led them at last to that which lay hidden at 
the foot of the rainbow; and over and above it all, 
insinuating its magic power into his veins, was the 
crude, yet fiercely-compelling worship of the Nootka 
tribe. 

Like contorted spectres, the chain of their human 
pattern threaded itself through the sublimating twi¬ 
light. For this moment, all their coarseness and vul¬ 
garity had fallen away. They shone through the 
semi-gloom as creatures invested with a new vision 
of life and its hidden meaning. To Rupert Harne, 
as he watched the Indians glide through each move 
of their intricate dance, they were no longer ignorant, 
uncultured natives dancing a meaningless ritual. 
They had suddenly become the symbols of his success. 

For many minutes that strange pattern of human 
figures twisted its course about a fire blazing dully 
in the center of their circle, while it seemed that the 
whole world about had become silent and barren as 
the grave. Only from that whirling group of Noot- 
kas did there come a low note of music, like the dom¬ 
inating strain of an olio, a low, singing drone of 
voices, rising at times like the noble swell of music, 
then falling again until it became soft and hushed as 
the love of a woman. 

To Harne, it seemed that the mystic music and the 
rhythm of the dancing feet had woven some strange 
spell about him, and it was only when Maneto stepped 
from the chain of dancers that he came to himself 


22 


BLACK GOLD 


with a start. At the same time he became conscious 
that in this symbolism he must play a part. 

“The white stranger gave to us the life of the little 
Marcile,” Maneto began in a loud, chanting voice, 
“the greatest good to the Nootka tribe. It was the 
greatest gift in the white man’s hand. Maneto will 
now give the greatest gift in the Indian’s hand. Say, 
should it not be so? Yet what is this greatest gift 
which will be of the greatest good to the white man? 
The white man did not come for the love of the Indian. 
He says he did not come for the yellow gold. Say to 
Maneto, why did he come. . . .” 

“Tell him,” the voice of Abner Gilvert sounded 
harshly at Harne’s shoulder. 

“We have heard the ways of the white man in the 
far land,” Maneto went on. “Did he not come, for 
the black stone which gives out heat and burns with¬ 
out a flame?” 

Harne nodded his head slowly. 

“That is what brought Abner Gilvert, the man who 
did not save the life of Marcile. Maneto and his 
tribe kept the secret from Gilvert. It is their greatest 
gift to the stranger, to the man who saved Marcile. 
Come! It is his!” 

Abruptly the Indian snatched a torch from the fire, 
then with quick strides he led the way to his own 
cabin which lay nestling against the ledges of the foot¬ 
hills. Within, at the far end, where heavy blankets 
seemed merely to drape the rock of the walls, he 


THE GIFT OF THE POTLATCH 23 

paused again; then with one swift sweep he tore the 
drab curtains aside. 

Where should have been only the bare face of the 
rock, there gaped the mouth of a tunnel, looming black 
and sombre, and dipping towards the heart of the hills. 

With a gesture which marked the slumbering drama 
of his bonded soul, Maneto swung towards his won¬ 
dering audience 

‘‘The secret we hid from Abner Gilvert, ,, he said 
simply. “It is our gift to the stranger.” 

“The gift of the Potlatch!” Gilvert muttered in a 
hollow voice. 

Harne bowed and passed beneath the Indian’s out- 
flung arm. He found himself at the edge of the 
cabin, where its sombre walls broke off into the still 
more sombre walls of the mountain, and there he 
reached out one hand reverently and touched the black¬ 
ness before him. As he did so, a flake of the purest 
anthracite broke away and fell at his feet. 

“Coal! Coal! Mountains of it! Rich as the gold 
of the Yukon!” Abner Gilvert cried in a shrill, thin 
voice. 

Harne wondered if he was right when he fancied 
that beneath the cry there was the warning note of 
cunning. 


CHAPTER III 


THE COST OF THE POTLATCH 

When Harne threw his blankets aside in the morn¬ 
ing, he could see, far to the south, in a gap between 
the Chitina Valley and the hills, the ambling course of 
the Copper River as it made its restless way to the 
sea. In the sky above, the sun was gleaming as it 
had gleamed so many days before; yet now there was 
a loosening grip in the warmth of its rays. 

Already Garry was working about the camp, and 
in his eyes was a fever which spoke of youthful 
eagerness. 

“Maneto’s lodge, first thing/’ he exclaimed. “I 
have a feeling that we are going to turn over in a 
minute and waken up, or that the mountains have 
moved away in the night. There’s a catch somewhere.” 

“One stroke of luck in three years isn’t a high 
average,” Harne returned. “And another thing is cer¬ 
tain. If the mountains have moved, we have gone 
with them.” 

Yet the visit to Maneto’s lodge revealed but little 
more than had been shown them at midnight. The 
bed of coal appeared to be an unexplored element. 
There was a short tunnel running into the rock from 
Maneto’s cabin, and so far as Harne could judge, 
24 


THE COST OF THE POTLATCH 25 

the heart of the mountain back of it must be built 
of solid coal. The floor, roof and sides of the tunnel 
dipped downward, and Harne, from his geological 
knowledge, knew that the vein must run to a great 
depth. 

“Value absolutely untouched, and only one way to 
get at it. Poor old Gilvert,” Harne reflected. “Does 
seem tough on the old boy, to moon around here for 
months as he must have done, and then have us pick 
the prize from under his nose. No wonder he had 
the willies last night.” 

“And since he isn’t around this morning, he’s prob¬ 
ably hitting the hooch, or getting wound up for a 
come-back,” Garry decided. “Decency would seem to 
imply, Rupe, that we should do something for the 
vanquished.” 

“Just what I have been thinking,” Harne concluded. 
“We will give him the second claim. But that doesn’t 
prevent us staking the best possible hundred and 
sixty acres as a starter for ourselves.” 

“Thank the Lord for that hundred and sixty acres,” 
Garry returned devoutly, “for it’s enough to give us 
a good slice of land all around this tunnel, and to give 
us the harbor and that flat land below, where a town 
is certain to spring up, once things get started. Now 
for it!” 

Yet investigation showed that there would be at 
least three extremely valuable claims, while the bal¬ 
ance would be of more or less speculative value. 

Night saw the first claim staked, embracing as it 


26 


BLACK GOLD 


did an ample margin of the hill, strips of both banks 
of the river along which commerce must flow, and a 
section of the valley where a town must blossom, and 
perhaps wither some day. 

Then, in the evening, when their meal had scarcely 
begun, Garry looked out across the trail to the river 
below. 

“The bugle,” he called, “Gilvert arrives! The long- 
absent one comes to pay court at the seats of the 
mighty. Hitting the hooch all day, I suppose.” 

Yet when Gilvert took a camp chair beside them, it 
was plain that hooch had been credited with one victim 
which it could not justly claim. Still, the man was 
obviously depressed, and his eyes were shifting. 

“You’ve made progress,” Gilvert spoke with forced 
cheer. “You seem to know your job at the survey 
game. Got your claim cleaned up?” 

“To the last stake,” Hame replied. “But there are 
a few days’ work yet to be done.” 

Quite plainly Gilvert was struggling with rebellious 
emotions, and when he came out of the battle it seemed 
that his more worthy instincts had triumphed. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t play the game with you fellows 
last night,” he began, with shamed reluctance. 

“Not another word about it,” Harne held up a 
friendly hand. “It strikes me you took it mighty well, 
for I have tried to imagine how I would feel in the 
same box, and I have to admit it isn’t comfortable. 
So Hart and I have been talking it over.” 

Gilvert’s slumbering eyes lit up with promise. 


THE COST OF THE POTLATCH 27 


“I knew you’d do the right thing by me,” he said. 
“Here I’ve been after this claim for months, and I 
couldn’t put my fingers on it. I don’t mind telling you 
that I followed this bunch of Nootkas in the spring 
when they crossed the mountains and settled down in 
this spot, and I knew pretty well why they’d picked 
the Chitina Valley. It was coal; and I would have 
had them in the end, even if I had to stick it out until 
winter. For in the winter they would have to start 
burning; after that, they couldn’t hold me off. I’d 
been trailing them, I say, for a year or more, and 
when you came along and picked up the prize in front 
of my face, well . . . You’ve said yourself that you 
can understand why I went berserk for a time. I’m 
sorry, and that’s my apology.” 

Harne laughed easily. 

“No harm done,” he assured. “We get your point 
of view. And to prove it, I will tell you that we 
have already decided to stake out the second claim 
and hand it over to you. It’s the best we can do.” 

Gilvert’s eyes shifted from Harne’s frank face; and 
once more there seemed to be an emotion which had 
risen up to do battle. 

“It’s more than decent of you,” he said, at length, 
“and I guess it’s more than I would have done for 
you, in the same case.” 

Even as he spoke, Gilvert rose and left them. 

“Queer old boy,” Garry commented. “And that re¬ 
minds me that we haven’t seen anything of the rain¬ 
bow to-day.” 


28 


BLACK GOLD 


“Our move,” Harne decided. “Nootka barbarian 
or not, she is probably waiting for the formal call. 
Should we send down our cards?” 

Yet it was not in any spirit of levity that they 
visited the cabins by the river; and when Harne no¬ 
ticed what a drab blot these huts made against the 
giant stagery about them, he found a return of the 
old hostility which had nagged him through the day 
whenever he thought of the man who had condemned 
his own flesh and blood to such surroundings. 

“One sure thing, the kid never had a chance,” Garry 
became sentimental. 

When Marcile met them at the doorway there was 
a smile upon her lips; but there was, as well, a dullness 
in the eyes which whispered vaguely of some slum¬ 
bering tragedy. 

“I’m right glad to see you,” she greeted them, 
“Dad’s gone somewhere, so you come right in and 
tell me how you’ve been getting on all day. I’m 
mighty glad you’ve struck it rich, for that’s what Dad 
calls it.” 

Harne could not help but feel that while the words 
were right, there was lacking the ring of zest which 
should have strengthened them. 

“We’ve been getting on fine, and now we have 
come to pay our tribute to the goddess,” Garry took 
up the conversation, and Harne sat back to study the 
surroundings. 

The cabin was crude enough. There was about it 
nothing but the barest essentials of existence; but that 


THE COST OF THE POTLATCH 29 


was not surprising. The astonishment lay in the fact 
that Marcile, with the light of day upon her, was even 
more attractive and alluring than she had been through 
the witchery of the daylit night. She could not be 
more than seventeen or eighteen, he decided, though 
the primitive costuming of the Nootkas made her ap¬ 
pear even younger than that; but the amazing thing 
was the calm grace of her, the conscious dignity, and 
the age-old subterfuge which made her continue to 
smile and chatter with Garry even while her eyes be¬ 
trayed the slumbering presence of tragedy. 

In that moment, Harne experienced a keen resent¬ 
ment towards facts. It was not right, he told him¬ 
self impulsively, that a growing flower like Marcile 
should be condemned to barbarity; for barbarity it 
was, and must always be, if she remained in the valley 
of the Chitina. 

“I suppose you’ll be going south soon?” he heard 
Marcile’s question through the wave of his resentment. 

“So that’s it,” Garry bantered, with the freedom of 
youth, “that’s what is showing in your eyes. But 
you mustn’t mourn about me, Marcile, for I’ll be 
back. . . .” 

“You, come back?” she laughed. “That don’t make 
any matter. I’ve seen boys like you before, and they 
ain’t ever struck me as anything to moon about.” 

“Brutally frank,” Garry admitted youthfully, “and 
now that I am kicked into the corner, tell me—it 
can’t be old Rupe you’re wasting your youthful beauty 
over ?” 


30 


BLACK GOLD 


“He ain’t old,” the girl flashed, “and he ain’t so 
bad, either.” 

“You poor unfortunate Rupe,” Garry mocked, 
“they always did fall for you.” 

“Fall? What are you meaning by that?” Marcile 
demanded. “But don’t you get any idea that I’m car¬ 
ing whether you go or stay. It ain’t that.” 

It was the inflection of the last words which thrust 
aside all levity; for they glimpsed suddenly, in this 
framework of the Nootka’s drab life, something of 
the sternness of the North; and they saw as well, the 
thongs of bondage where there should have been only 
the glad freedom of the wild. 

“Sorry, Marcile,” Garry said more gently, “what 
is it?” 

“Don’t you worry, for things would of been the 
same if you hadn’t come,” she replied, “or I guess 
they wouldn’t, for I’d a been a deader now. And I 
ain’t even thanked you.” 

“Wrong again, O Goddess,” Garry returned. “If 
there is any thanking to be done, young Iris, don’t 
forget that it was you who led us to the foot of the 
rainbow.” 

“It’s the first time I’ve ever been any good for any¬ 
thing,” she rebelled. 

“Too advanced,” Harne put in. “You mustn’t say 
that.” 

“Well, it is,” she retorted; then as though she had 
borne the deception of cheer long enough, Marcile 
broke into tears. 


THE COST OF THE POTLATCH 


3i 


“Stop it, Marcile,” Garry exclaimed in confusion, 
“we’re going to stake a claim for you to-morrow.” 

“Leave her alone,” Harne begged. “The accident 
at the river must have upset her more than we 
fancied. ...” 

Marcile brushed an angry hand across her eyes. 

“Accident?” she exclaimed, “Lordy! Don’t you 
know?” 

“Know what, child?” 

“That it weren’t no accident.” 

The girl turned her face away, and her lips were 
quivering. The men exchanged glances; then they, 
too, averted their faces. 

“You mean it, Marcile?” Harne asked at length. 

“Yes, I do,” she returned stubbornly, “I mean it. 
I did it on purpose.” 

Abruptly it seemed to both men that in this instant 
all the joy had gone out of the rolling hills; there 
was no longer music in the running water, no elation 
in their own victory. There was only a child who 
must have comfort. 

“But why ? Why, child ?” Harne asked, more 
slowly. “But never mind. Don’t tell us unless you 
feel like it.” 

Again Marcile brushed the angry tears from her 
eyes. 

“They ain’t nothing I’m afraid to tell,” she declared. 
“I done it ’cause Dad. ... I heard him say he’d 
give me to old Maneto to tell where the coal was 
hid. . . .” 


32 


BLACK GOLD 


For a time Harne did not answer. He could not. 
He felt that out of their sudden victory there had 
come a new burden. 

Marcile was the first to recover. She swept away 
all signs of her tears and her anger, and when Harne 
looked at her again, there was a smile upon her lips. 

“Well, that’s done me good,” she declared, “and 
I’m guessing it ain’t so bad as it feels. Anyway, Ab 
Gilvert ain’t no father of mine.” 

“You mean that?” Garry demanded. 

“I dunno,” the girl returned slowly, “I don’t know 
why I said that, but it struck me all to once that he 
couldn’t be. I never thought of it afore, but he don’t 
act like one.” 

Harne and Garry tramped back to their tent in si¬ 
lence, and it seemed that some of the magic mystery 
had gone out of the glory of the hills, and that in 
its place had come only the old story of life and its 
drabness. 

“I wonder, Hart,” Harne was the first to speak, 
“what strange trick of the North we have run into 
now.” 

“I wonder,” Garry echoed; then a moment later, 
when he swung about to face his companion, his eyes 
were aflame, “so it is to be war with Gilvert after 
all?” 

For a moment Harne was startled; then he shook 
his head vaguely, and they tramped once more through 
the growing twilight. 


CHAPTER IV 


GILVERT SHOWS HIS TYPE 

Harne’s next glimpse at the fluctuating moods 
which went to make up the outward spirit of Marcile 
came when she visited them of her own free will in 
the evening, as he and Garry sat by the campfire. 

This time the blight of sadness had been driven 
away by a happiness which seemed unreserved, and 
because of the vivacity in her manner she became more 
than ever the child. She entertained them with 
snatches of song in the Nootka tongue; and she called 
Wanego, the daughter of Maneto, to dance with her 
before the flickering campfire while the curious tribe 
looked on. 

They were a solemn tribe, moody and reserved, 
looking out upon a strange world with listless eyes; 
yet Harne fancied that back of the masks which had 
been drawn across their souls there was a secret ad¬ 
miration for the girl Marcile. 

Several evenings passed in this way, with Marcile’s 
moods voicing their silent appeal; and in that time, 
Harne caught little flashes here and there of her past. 
He learned that Abner Gilvert had told only the truth 
when he spoke of following the Nootkas over the 
ranges; but in one salient feature he had fallen short 
33 


34 


BLACK GOLD 


of the full facts. For he had not told how he first 
found the tribe of Maneto nearly three years before, 
and of how Marcile had lived with the Indians since 
that day; nor did he tell how he himself came and 
went, and how, with each of his passings, Marcile 
remained behind. 

So, when viewed through the eyes of civilization, 
that life of Marcile, hedged about as it was by the 
North and by the Nootkas, had become a tragedy. 
Yet there was a resiliency of spirit which made her 
recognize in him the anchorage of hope. 

For Harne knew that this thing had come into his 
life, whether he would have it or not. . . . Marcile 
was looking to him with eyes aflame with a hope 
whose glory she could not conceal. 

That, he felt, was an unconscious attitude; it was 
rather the welling up of instinctive faith. 

So his relation to her must be a careful one. He 
would remain for a time in the Chitina, and he would 
teach her, slowly, with infinite care, that he was a 
friend, but that he was nothing more. His interest 
in her would be guardedly paternal; and that teaching, 
pleasing though it might be, would save Marcile from 
suffering one of the potential cruelties of the world. 

Harne solved his problem in fancy while he roamed 
the Chitina Valley in the twilight, and he thought of 
the amused interest which would come to the eyes of 
Edith Pellinger when he told her of Marcile. On the 
whole he was rather pleased with the cards of Fate; 
and he was still some distance from camp when he 


GILVERT SHOWS HIS TYPE 


35 


saw Garry and Marcile strolling by the river’s edge. 

When the girl looked up and saw him, she quick¬ 
ened her stride. 

“Why do you run away?” she demanded. “We’ve 
been taking another peek at your wonder cave, and I 
can’t get over it. I guess the missioner will say it’s 
a miracle.” 

What an impetuous little creature she was. For a 
moment the idea flashed to Harne that perhaps, some 
day, he would have her sent away from the Chitina, 
out to the South where Edith Pellinger could smooth 
away the roughness of her uncivilized ways. 

“You are looking fine to-night, Marcile,” he re¬ 
turned, staidly enough, “and with pig-tails hanging 
down your back like a youngster.” 

“You don’t like my pig-tails?” Marcile demanded 
with such a concern that Harne laughed, “you don’t 
like them. I cut them off.” 

“I wouldn’t do that. Pig-tails, properly treated, 
are part of a woman’s beauty.” 

“Woman? Who calls me a woman? The only 
women I know are squaws. You think I’m a squaw, 
perhaps ?” 

“Poor Rupe,” Garry mocked, “routed, defeated. 
Now pull down the flag, and we’ll change the subject.” 

“Sure we change it,” Marcile agreed, “we talk 
about Dad. You won’t let him give me away no 
more, Meester Rupe. I been talking to your boy 
about it, and he says you can do most everything. 
You do that?” 


36 


BLACK GOLD 


“Some order,” Garry replied, “but we’ll think it 
over. . . 

“l wasn’t talking to you,” Marcile flashed back, as 
she turned towards Harne. 

“I will talk it over with him,” Harne promised. 
“I don’t think you need to trouble your little head 
about it any more.” 

‘‘It’s awful nice to have men around what can take 
care of a fellow,” Marcile grew more cheerful still. 
“You’re going to stay a long while, ain’t you?” 

“We will have to go out to Valdez shortly to locate 
our claims,” Harne evaded. 

“I’d forgot that,” Marcile said rather ruefully, “but 
you’ll come back, and I’ll forget you ever been away.” 

“Of course, we’ll be back,” Garry replied teasingly. 

“Why didn’t you let him say it?” the girl retorted. 
“Ain’t you got no manners? I’m talking to Rupe 
now.” 

When both men laughed, Marcile’s lips drew tight, 
and they saw something far back of her deep brown 
eyes which made them wonder if, after all, she was as 
much the child as she seemed. For it was that age¬ 
less something which they both had seen before, and 
which they had known in other women. 

Harne watched her closely as they made their way 
to the village. He studied her shining eyes, now half¬ 
swimming in angry tears, the heavy mass of hair 
which at times seemed pure black, yet at times again 
was threaded with the spun silk of ripened corn. He 
noticed the brown hands and throat, the flush of health 


GILVERT SHOWS HIS TYPE 


37 


which flooded the bronze of her cheeks, and he re¬ 
membered the gleam of white where the dress had 
been torn from her throat. He noted the slim, shapely 
body, covered with the garb of an Indian maiden, and 
he wondered at the long drooping lashes, black as a 
native girl’s. He thought of her flashes of anger and 
her deep moods of melancholy, the one trait of the 
white, the other the bequeathment of the Nootka. As 
he looked, he wondered—was she still the child ? Was 
she part Nootka? 

They sauntered down the bank of the river, towards 
Maneto’s lodge, for the moment each content with the 
passing beauty of comradeship; and just outside the 
village they met the Nootka chief, running towards 
them, and wearing an air of importance. 

“He’s gone!” Maneto gasped, as he stopped before 
them with a gesture. 

“Illuminative,” Garry conceded. “Have any bets on 
him?” 

“Gilvert’s gone,” Maneto explained. “He cursed 
me and said he’d beat you whites to Valdez.” 

Garry’s flippancy vanished, for he did not need 
Harne’s sobering face to tell him the significance of 
the Nootka’s words, to tell him that Gilvert’s creed 
was undoubtedly founded upon treachery. 

Gilvert gone to Valdez! 

Harne gripped the Indian by the shoulder. 

“Did you see him around our location posts?” he 
demanded tensely. 

“This morning. He put marks in a book,” was 


3« 


BLACK GOLD 


the startling reply, “Maneto followed. He’s gone, out 
there!” 

For the moment the significance of that was dead¬ 
ening; then almost instantly Harne gained control of 
his senses and was able to gaze more clearly into the 
future. 

“The scoundrel has stolen our location numbers,” he 
rasped out. “That means he’s trying to steal our mine. 
He’s on his way to the recorder’s office; and may God 
help us if he wins!” 

Through the daze of this sudden blow, Garry could 
see once more that grim spectre of Defeat leering upon 
them. Gilvert gone to Valdez, with the location num¬ 
bers in his pocket! And the recorder would accept 
the claim from the first man who made it; and after 
that the whole legal machinery of a nation would be 
at the winner’s back. 

“We’ve got to beat him to it, Rupe,” Garry decided 
crisply; then to Maneto, “How far is he ahead of us? 
Did he leave this morning?” 

Maneto threw out his arms dramatically. 

“Miles and miles ahead,” he declared. “Go. You 
lose time.” 

“Yes, Hart, we’ve got to beat him,” Harne made 
his rapid decision, “now, move fast.” 

Harne was in the middle of his hurried prepara¬ 
tions, throwing a stock of food and blankets together, 
when he became conscious of the hovering presence 
of Marcile. The girl, though voiceless, was watching 
him with eager lights in her smouldering eyes; and as 


GILVERT SHOWS HIS TYPE 


39 

Harne looked into that unreadable gaze he paused 
sharply in his work. 

In the panic of the instant he had forgotten Mar- 
cile and his self-imposed duty towards her. Yet now 
the problem was upon him again. To delay in this 
trip to Valdez meant inevitable defeat. To go, meant 
to leave Marcile now, to leave, all in one swift instant, 
his careful plans to teach her to respect him only as 
she would revere a father. 

Garry saw and understood a little of the problem 
in his comrade’s mind, as did Old Maneto. 

“She is safe,” said the Nootka, “Maneto will be 
her father.” 

“Are you afraid, child?” Harne asked. 

“No, I ain’t. Youse go along.” 

“We must go,” Harne decided. “Will you promise 
that, that ... it won’t happen again?” 

“No, I won’t jump from no rock again, if . . . 
you’ll kiss me like when you thought I was a 
gonner. . . .” 

Harne scarcely knew why he hesitated. It was 
such a simple thing to kiss a child good-bye. - Yet he 
did hesitate, not from any outward warning which 
appealed to the eye, but from some inner prompting 
which reached from the vague blackness to grip him 
backward. He felt that it was only the unrestrained 
freedom of the North, the lack of the teachings of 
the outer world, which could have made Marcile ask 
such a thing. It was the North which made her frank 
and heart-open, which had made her swift to show 


40 


BLACK GOLD 


her likes and her dislikes, and which had left her as 
free and unrestrained in her emotions as the animals 
of the wild. 

Or was it that she was just the child? The North, 
he knew, is slow in demanding maturity of its chil¬ 
dren ; and when he looked deep into her trusting eyes, 
he whispered to himself: 

“It is safe, for she is only the child.” 

Then he stooped and pressed her full red lips ever 
so lightly. 

As he did so, he was conscious of a new fire of 
emotion which swept through him, of some current 
of vitality which seemed to leap from the girl’s lips 
to his own. For Marcile had answered the pressure 
of his lips, and in her answer there was not the meek¬ 
ness of the child. There was a touch of fire and 
emotion which made him think of the violence of 
the North and its cruelty, of the swift, untutored 
desires which leap into action, or which smoulder 
through the years. Could Harne have recalled that 
kiss, he would have done so feverishly; for instantly, 
after the warmth of Marcile’s lips, there flashed to 
him the strange thought that somewhere, in the fu¬ 
ture, there would be a price to pay. 

“Now I have your promise,” he forced the words 
gaily; and Marcile answered in a strange, new voice, 
with eyes dazzling. 

“Oh, I’ll take care of myself all right. Don’t you 
worry.” 

They hurried through their preparations, with Mar- 


GILVERT SHOWS HIS TYPE 


4i 


cile hovering about them; and at the edge of the 
Nootka dock, with canoe launched and with paddles 
poised for the first stroke of the race against Abner 
Gilvert, Garry held up one hand to the waiting 
Maneto. 

“Can you imagine what it would be like to be flayed, 
crossways, up and down?” he asked. 

The Indian’s lips twitched, but that was the only 
answer. 

“We both know quite well how smooth this work 
could be,” Garry went on slowly, “for whatever else 
it does, it gets us out of the way. . . . And it leaves 
you with Marcile. Understand? And if you don’t 
happen to be here when we get back, you will dis¬ 
cover in the process of time that the world is infinitely 
small, too small to hold a certain chief by the name 
of Maneto.” 

“I get you,” Maneto returned grimly. 

“If you do, the understanding is perfect. And 
don’t use slang. It speaks badly for the missionary. 
Ready, Rupe?” 

Maneto leaned forward; and he hollowed his hands 
and whispered. 

“Abner Gilvert’s the coward. Run the big rapid 
one night from now and you beat him to Valdez.” 

Harne nodded, and he looked backward for a last 
glimpse of Marcile. 

She was standing there, with eager lights in her 
eyes, with a blaze of promise and a new vision of 
life shining in their depths. 


42 


BLACK GOLD 


“You come back soon?” she whispered so softly 
that her voice barely reached him, and with the first 
touch of diffidence which he had seen in her manner. 
And that, he knew, was the flaunting of its own story 
that Marcile was not the child, and that she, in her 
penetrating but untutored way, had read her own 
meaning into the kiss which had warmed her lips. 

The paddles dipped quickly and the first stage of 
the race to Valdez had begun. 


CHAPTER V 


DRIVEN COURAGE 

Among the traps set by the North to snare the 
unwary feet of the adventurers, the Black Wolf rapids 
stand out second only to the terrors of the Chilkoot 
Trail. In the early days of the maddened Klondikers, 
the Chilkoot broke the dreams, the hearts, and the 
lives of her thousands; but the Black Wolf stands 
out with equal venom, waiting for the grist of hu¬ 
manity to pass by. 

It is a turmoil of a river, blocked by the sudden 
inward swing of basaltic rock marking the mouth 
of a black canyon through which the water rushes; 
and it was this fevered rapids which Maneto had told 
Harne and Garry to run if they were to beat Gil vert 
to Valdez. 

Already they knew something of its fear, for they 
had paid to it the tribute of a portage on the only 
occasion when they had passed that way; and yet the; 
Black Wolf Rapids, perilous as they were, did not 
make up the whole problem of Rupert Harne. 

There was Marcile; there was Maneto, with dark¬ 
ened mind into which the brain of a white man might 
not always peer. 


43 


44 


BLACK GOLD 


There was the fact that they had become largely 
the creatures of the Nootka’s whim. For Maneto, 
under the schooling of Abner Gilvert, might have be¬ 
come many things. His seeming sincerity might have 
been no more than a pose; and there was the further 
fact that neither Harne nor Garry had seen Gilvert 
all day. 

“It may simply mean that Gilvert got the necessary 
start before we were warned,” Harne summed up his 
thoughts aloud, “then we were told to run the Black 
Wolf, in the hope that it would wreck us.” 

Garry nodded; but his arms moved steadily as be¬ 
fore; so Harne’s mind drifted back once more to the 
Nootka. 

There was that strange habit of the Nootkas of 
migrating every few months, or years; and if per¬ 
chance their time had come to move on again, they 
might be far away and over the mountains—and Mar- 
cile with them—long before he could hope to return 
from Valdez. 

“There is a chance,” Harne spoke aloud once more, 
“that the missionary has won over the totem pole. 
But the thing now seems to be to catch Gilvert before 
he reaches the rapids, provided he is not already in 
Valdez.” 

“And that means the saving of breath,” Garry 
advised. 

So they saved their energy as well, every ounce 
which they could spare. They swung forward with 
long, measured strokes, and when the twilight of mid- 


DRIVEN COURAGE 


45 


night found them they were still without sight or 
sound of Abner Gilvert. 

A hurried meal on shore, then once more they were 
rushing through the dull grey of the morning hours, 
with the banks of the river sweeping past them. In 
the distance were the white-tipped ranges of the 
Coast Mountains, with their foothills pressing down 
upon the borders of the Copper, narrowing its course 
and driving it at times into the turbulence of rapids. 
But that was only an augury of what lay before. 

There was a mad fever in racing thus through the 
hours, with the shores growing more rugged, the 
river more turbulent, and with the constant knowledge 
that somewhere in the south, towards Valdez, there 
was a calm-faced man sitting in a recorder’s office 
ready to register the first claim of the first man who 
pressed it. The thought of that, and of the figures 
which Gilvert might read out to him, was so madden¬ 
ing that Harne forced his thoughts into other channels. 

For a time he pondered the warm flame of passion 
which had leaped to Marcile’s lips when he had thought 
to treat her as a child; but his consciousness of her 
new womanhood made that memory a cheerless one. 
For whatever his battles with the North, least of all 
had he thought to torture the heart of a child. 

Then Garry stopped paddling and drew him back 
into the present. 

“It’s the middle of the forenoon, and no sign of 
Gilvert yet,” Garry spoke heavily. 

Harne noticed then that the other was beginning 


46 


BLACK GOLD 


to show some of the strain of this battle of the flesh. 
The eyes were half-closed and dull, the arms were 
sagging; when Harne slackened his own stroke in 
sympathy he found that his limbs were leaden. This 
long river which lay before him, glimmering and danc¬ 
ing beyond Hartley Garry’s shoulder, was no longer 
the toy. The sight of it brought a sudden revulsion 
to his brain. 

Harne grasped his faculties with a conscious effort. 

“Too big a start,” he found that even words re¬ 
quired deliberate thought, “but we will catch him be¬ 
fore he reaches the rapids.” 

“Perhaps,” Garry’s sudden lack of faith was but 
another reflex of physical effort. “Can’t be far off 
now. See how narrow the river is . . . and swift.” 

Garry was right. Though their paddles were rest¬ 
ing across the thwarts, the ruggedness of the river 
banks still raced onward like a panorama before their 
listless eyes. Garry must be right; for the foothills 
were growing more arrogant, and just beyond their 
tips was a whitened fume, the smoke of the eternal 
mists which haunt the coast of the lisiere. 

The Black Wolf Rapids, and the coast beyond; but 
no Gilvert. 

It was restful to sit thus, with drooping arms and 
shoulders, while the rocky shores raced by; just to 
sit, not even to think, or to wonder about the mysteries 
of fortune or chance which lay in this beclouded fu¬ 
ture. It was absurd anyway, to give up the body to 
the whipping of a will which had some strange motive 


DRIVEN COURAGE 


47 


back of it, but which seemed incongruous in this mo¬ 
ment when physical rest and calm were the only things 
in the world which mattered. 

“Listen!” Garry spoke more sharply now, under 
the prompting of some new goad, “listen, Rupe! 
We’re coming to it!” 

That, of course, was just like the old Garry, the 
Garry whose youthful vitality would spur him into 
fresh vigor at the sight of a new danger to be faced. 

Yet the sound of Garry’s keener voice drove the 
mists from Harne’s brain and whipped his senses alert. 
Garry was bending forward, listening intently; and 
when the youth swung about, the dullness of his eyes 
had given place to their old flash of abandon. 

From the distance came the low, angry rumble of 
water which snarled and fought with itself like a tor¬ 
mented animal. For a time they listened, while the 
drifting canoe bore them nearer that jumbled roar; and 
as its angry challenge rushed out to meet them, Garry 
shrugged his shoulders sharply. 

“Gilvert’s no coward,” he declared with conviction. 
“No man would be a coward for refusing to go 
through a hell like that.” 

Still they drifted, as though fascinated by the ar¬ 
rogant voice of the rapids which raced up to mock 
them and flip cold pictures of its violence against the 
retina of their brains. Almost it seemed as though 
the river were pleading with them to be swallowed up 
in its vortex, to add themselves to the victims who 
had dared its anger and paid its price. 


4 8 


BLACK GOLD 


“God!” Harne exclaimed. He raised in his posi¬ 
tion, peered out over the restless water, then dropped 
back stiffly. “No, Hart,” he pronounced, “Gilvert is 
not the coward. See that black thing near the right 
bank.” 

Garry searched, and he found it; and he, too, ex¬ 
claimed in surprise and alarm. 

“Gilvert!” he shouted, “he’s going to run the 
rapids.” 

“Right,” Harne agreed, “he has his nerve with 
him. Started to portage, saw us, and now . . 

Silence came upon them, the silence of fear and 
wonder, as they watched the distant shadow gliding 
from beyond the shore line, gliding nearer and nearer 
that lip of the canyon which reached out with a suck¬ 
ing breath to draw all things unto it. They watched 
the dark form of Gilvert, darker still against the 
whitened wall of the gap, as it slipped towards that 
treacherous cut in the rock, like some creature 
enchanted. 

They saw, by the dash of spray, where the rapids 
broke for the plunge; they saw the canoe sink swiftly 
out of sight down the gliding raceway; then all that 
was left was the muttering of the ominous canyon 
which snarled like some living thing over its prey. 

“May Heaven help him!” Garry’s voice was de¬ 
vout, and reduced to a whisper. 

“And us!” Harne cried, with the sloth of the past 
shaken from him. 

For the sight of Gilvert, driven by the lash of cour- 


DRIVEN COURAGE 


49 

age into the Black Wolf Rapids, had swept one of 
the torments from his brain. 

Maneto had not lied. 

For nothing short of despair could have compelled 
Gilvert, or any other man, to dare the treachery of 
the Gap. So all that was left was the race to Valdez. 

The problem behind had vanished, for Marcile was 
safe, in the hands of Maneto. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE TOLL OF THE RAPIDS 

Abner Gilvert had gone before, and who could 
say that he did not hold the key which would lead 
him safely through to Valdez? 

Muscles were tensed now for the struggle, and 
Harne and Garry sat quite still while the blurred river 
rushed past them. 

Canyon-like walls on either side, a current racing 
swiftly; rocky banks, towering, bleak and uncompro¬ 
mising, the churning of water as it raced into the nar¬ 
rowing space; and no hope for the man who failed 
either in the keenness of the eye or the swiftness of 
stroke. 

In the center of the river the current piled high, 
running swiftly, with the clean, greenish glide of some 
monstrous serpent. Treacherous as a serpent, and 
gliding, for Harne had once looked down upon it from 
the rocks above and knew its trickery; a trickery which 
carried the main current of the river down the can¬ 
yon, crashed it into the right wall of the rock, and 
then tossed it aside, leaving behind only a tumult of 
water. 

Yet there must be a way through, or Gilvert would 
not now be daring, and Maneto would not have spoken. 

50 


THE TOLL OF THE RAPIDS 


5i 


“We ride the crest,” Harne shouted. “When I sig¬ 
nal, swing to the left, and cut the current before it 
crashes.” 

Garry nodded his understanding, for that, he knew, 
was the one hope—to ride the high crest of this gliding 
serpent, and then, before it crushed them against the 
walls of its cage, to swing across the boiling water for 
the left bank of the canyon. 

Before them, to the right, was the leaping of 
water. There were pyramids of it, darting into the 
air like feathered spume thrown about by an angry 
wind; but, there was no sign of Abner Gilvert. Even 
in this crisis, Harne found himself thinking that no 
man could have gone alone through this inferno; and 
then, already the powdered spray from the right wall 
was leaping into their faces. 

“Left!” Harne cried crisply. 

They sprang to their paddles, working with the fear 
of the future upon them, fighting with their full 
strength to hold the canoe in the outer fringe of 
water. 

For a hundred yards they fought their way, hold¬ 
ing by strength alone to the safe rim of the current; 
but in that brief time their arms ached from the fury 
of their strokes. 

The fang of a rock stood up before them. 

It marked the turning of the main current; it gave 
them a few yards of comparative calm. 

Then abruptly, as though with the snarl of foiled 
purpose, the current loosened its grip and they shot 


52 


BLACK GOLD 


out again upon the flood-tide, where once more it 
raced like that monstrous green serpent dashing for 
the sea. 

Slowly, with a sigh of relief, Harne balanced his 
paddle across the thwarts. 

He looked at the widening strip of sky before him, 
white with the eternal mists of the glacial coast. And 
below was the thin stretch of the river, growing placid 
once more in its freedom from that rocky bondage 
which had gripped it. 

“It's over, for us,” Harne said listlessly, “but how! 
could any one man go through that hell alone?” 

Garry shivered, and for the time being the light¬ 
heartedness of his youth had been snatched from him. 

With the passing of danger, a languor slipped over 
them. For hour after hour they had been working 
steadily, almost to the limit of strength, and now the 
reaction was setting in. With the spur of danger 
gone, their limbs seemed more leaden than before, and 
the only thing in life worth while was to sit quite 
still while the current carried them outward towards 
the sea. 

They passed beyond the widened walls of the lower 
gap, into the open river. 

Directly before them was some object, dark and mas¬ 
sive. Instinct told Harne that it was a rock. In¬ 
stinct again caused him to dip his paddle and swerve 
their canoe aside. 

Then abruptly he heard a whining cry, half-animal, 
half-human. 


THE TOLL OF THE RAPIDS 


53 

After that, there were words, pitched in a shrill, 
frightened falsetto. 

“You ain’t going to leave me here to die?” 

“It’s Gilvert,” Garry cried, “busted, piled higher 
than a dead salmon.” 

And Garry was right, for Abner Gilvert was cling¬ 
ing to the rock with the half of the canoe which was 
left to him. His face was white and pained, and 
about him was nothing heroic. 

“Yes, its Gilvert,” the man called frantically after the 
swiftly-receding canoe, “and this water’s cold as hell, 
but you’re both gentlemen.” 

“Though a bit worn in the looks,” Garry shouted 
back. 

The current swept them away, but in their passing, 
both had seen the peril of the man’s refuge, and also 
the danger of a rescue. Broken in the rapids above, 
Gilvert had drifted with the current, held up by the 
half of the canoe, only to lodge against this obstacle. 
But even out here, past the dangers of the canyon, 
in the open river, Gilvert’s position was dangerous 
enough. The rock against which he had lodged was 
almost in the center of the current, and as the flood 
of water swept against the barrier it rose high on 
either side, raced on, then fell with a swirl into a 
pit-like cavity beyond. 

“An awkward hole for a man to be in, that place 
of Gilvert’s,” Garry said, some time later. 

Gilvert had dragged himself clear of the water; he 
had climbed to his feet and was waving his arms. 


54 


BLACK GOLD 


There were screaming notes in a voice which lacked 
human fortitude, but the words failed to carry through 
the distance. 

“Yet an hour ago his chances were the same as 
ours/’ Harne returned. 

For some minutes they drifted with the current, 
until that black, shrieking thing grew to be only a 
speck against its misty background. And while they 
drifted, the stream of life flowed back into their veins, 
mingling its cheer with the pleasing demand of sleep. 
There was balm in the sleep-laden air, there was a 
great sense of peace and restfulness in the knowledge 
that their struggle was over and that they had won. 

Their wearied bodies pleaded for sleep; the apathy 
of their limbs cried out that they do no more toil; 
yet, back upon the rock, with treacherous arms out- 
flung, was Abner Gilvert. 

Harne came to himself with a sigh of weariness. 

“This will be a good place to turn back,” he said. 

So they turned the canoe until its prow faced the 
current. 

“There is only one way to do it,” Garry decided. 
“We can’t afford to pile up the way Gilvert did, and 
if we land in that hole behind the rock it will be the 
end of all of us. So we will have to work our way 
up the river, and when we are above Gilvert’s rock 
we will angle across. If we guess our distances 
right, we should make it the first time. And if we 
crash . . . ?” 

It was nerve-breaking toil to force the canoe 


THE TOLL OF THE RAPIDS 


55 


against the current, in view of the struggle through 
which they had passed; yet an hour later they gained 
a point high above the rock on which Gilvert was 
stranded. A quick turn of the canoe, and they found 
themselves drifting obliquely down upon the scene 
of rescue. 

Gilvert stared upon this swift change of fortune 
as one who with difficulty credits his senses; yet in 
the end his quick wit played its part. He saw the 
canoe drifting down upon him, straight towards the 
dangerous part of the rock. 

“By Heaven, it’ll bust you!” he cried, in alarm. 

“Check with your paddle,” Harne shouted. 

Garry caught the point of rock with his paddle, 
but the current buffeted him. Then in that moment, 
Gilvert’s brain flashed to the rescue. He seized the 
shattered half of his canoe and thrust it like a bow 
before the point of rock as the second canoe pressed 
down upon it. 

“Good work, Gilvert,” Harne complimented, “just 
in time. A second ago I had visions of the three 
of us stranded. Now what in the world are you doing 
here anyway?” 

“The rocks bust me up, somewhere near the top 
of the rapids, and I floated down. The canoe has 
an air chamber.” 

“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it,” Harne 
returned, more sharply. “I mean, what ever made 
you get into a mess like this?” 

“Just taking a trip down to Valdez,” Gilvert re- 


56 BLACK GOLD 

plied, with an attempt at nonchalance. “Thought I’d 
run the rapids. Often done it. Saves time. Missed 
a stroke at the top. Getting too old, I guess. . . 

“Gilvert, stop your bluffing. You’ve been trying 
to put something over us, and it would serve you right 
if we left you here like a rat.” 

Gilvert made a display of astonishment. 

“Put something over you boys?” he exclaimed. 
“What do you mean? Thought we were friends. 
Didn’t you give me a coal claim? Harne, you don’t 
think I would turn a nasty corner after that?” 

“Cases sometimes get past thinking,” Garry as¬ 
sured. “We have reached the age of wisdom. 
Maneto talked.” 

“The gift of words. What of it?” Gilvert de¬ 
manded, with outward astonishment, “I am in the 
dark. Boys, the light.” 

“If you must have it straight, Maneto saw you 
snooping around our location posts and copying the 
numbers; and now Maneto and judgment have 
both told us that you are on your way to the re¬ 
corder’s.” 

Gilvert’s face darkened with anger. 

“Maneto told that?” he muttered, “He is crooked to 
the core. Lied, and you know it. What’s he got 
against me?” 

“Just turned you down,” Garry laughed. 

“Turned me down. You don’t mean you believe 
that old scoundrel against me, a white man? Good 
God, boys, I may be shiftless; but not that.” 


THE TOLL OF THE RAPIDS 


57 

On the surface, Gilvert’s anger was real enough, so 
Harne jerked out his instructions. 

“Get in,” he ordered. 

“Get in? Of course I’ll get in,” Gilvert hastily 
obliged, “but if you believe that old scoundrel you can 
search me, hide and hair; and if you find the record 
of a single location number on me I’ll jump back 
into the river and stay there.” 

“Fair enough,” Garry admitted, “but if we found 
the numbers, you would hardly need to do much jump¬ 
ing. I would be helping you along your way, through 
the great kindness of my heart.” 

“Take the middle,” Harne instructed. “We can set¬ 
tle the account later.” 

With a pressure upon both paddles, Harne and 
Garry thrust the canoe free of the rock, and they 
swept out upon the current on the opposite side. Si¬ 
lently they slipped down through the changing light 
which now seemed to be shrouded in a strange glamor ; 
and from time to time Harne closed his eyes in weari¬ 
ness. In the distance were the snow-capped peaks, 
with the sentineled mountains standing out clearly 
against the darkness of the valley below; but it was 
not until the river widened into a small lake that 
Harne showed a reawakening of interest in their sur¬ 
roundings, for at the distant shore where the lake 
narrowed into the river again there was a cluster of 
dwarf houses snuggling between the river and the 
hills. 

“I don’t know what place this is,” Harne admitted, 


58 


BLACK GOLD 


“but it doesn’t matter. We are going to get some 
sleep out of it anyway.” 

iGarry nodded readily enough. 

“And perhaps have a little understanding with our 
friend Abner,” he added. “You know the route, Gil- 
vert. What place is this?” 

“Cordova. A neck-in-the'-woods hole. Mostly In¬ 
dians. A few whites. We might be able to find a 
place to sleep.” 

A closer view of Cordova tended to corroborate 
Gilvert’s lack of compliment. There was an unstable 
dock for the accommodation of small craft; there 
were a score of drowsy cabins sleeping on the hillside, 
a few fishermen’s huts on the beach, and farther off, 
among the Sitka spruce and cedar, were the shacks 
of the Indians. 

Obviously it was a fishing depot, and a.s they drew 
up to the dock it became plain that Cordova was sleep¬ 
ing soundly. 

“Is there a land office here?” Garry asked, as he 
turned to Gilvert. 

“Never saw one, but you better look for yourselves. 
What I want is sleep. I lost my whole kit in the 
river, so I’m going to rout out some of the whites.” 

“Let’s have a look for the location numbers in 
friend Gilvert’s pockets,” Garry suggested. 

“Ready,” Gilvert volunteered, with arms thrust into 
the air. 

“Sleep first,” Harne returned. “Give him a chance 
to swallow them through the night.” 


THE TOLL OF THE RAPIDS 


59 


“And ruin his digestion? Location numbers are 
particularly hard to digest. Rupe, you’re too hard 
hearted.” 

“It might save you the trouble of throwing him into 
the river.” 

Gilvert instantly became a problem, for, under the 
circumstances, discretion informed them that it was 
not wise for both Harne and Garry to sleep at the 
same time. In his present mood, Gilvert was meek 
and mild; there was about him the suggestion of in¬ 
jured innocence which was struggling to bear up be¬ 
neath its burden; but at the same time, they were not 
yet in Valdez. 

So they decided to sleep in shifts, with the first lot 
falling to Garry. 

Outwardly, Gilvert was quite indifferent to these 
arrangements. He had neither suggestions nor crit¬ 
icisms, and when Harne handed over his blankets, 
they were accepted with mild thanks. Gilvert was 
shortly curled up on the sheltered side of a building; 
and when Harne explored the settlement he found it 
to be a typical northland colony, with two or three 
stores, a pair of saloons, and with little else of marked 
identity. 

Then Harne slept in turn; and wakened in time to 
find a sun which had traveled well past noon. The 
canoe was at the dock just as they had left it at mid¬ 
night; so Harne walked through the village in search 
for Garry and Gilvert, and the first inquiry he made 
from the first white man he met was for a land agent. 


6o 


BLACK GOLD 


“Ain’t none short of Valdez/’ the man informed 
him; then with a swift awakening of interest, “nobody 
ain’t ever wanted a land agent here. What you got 
up your sleeve, stranger? Been tucking away some 
gold claims?” 

“Nothing like that,” Harne replied, instantly con¬ 
scious that any mention whatever of land location had 
been a mistake. 

For there is no fever like the fever of gold, and 
there is no other shrewdness in the eyes of man like 
that which comes when the brain seems to scent the 
magic lure. 

It was that shrewdness which looked out from the 
eyes of the man before him. 

“Let’s have a drink, pal,” the stranger suggested, 
and Harne fell in at his side while they tramped the 
short but twisted highway which made up the sole 
street of Cordova. 

“Understand me, stranger,” Harne warned, “I don’t 
know any more about gold than you do, so you’re 
wasting the price of one scuttle of hooch.” 

The man was a nondescript; he might have been 
many things, or a few, for there was nothing in his cos¬ 
tume or manner to carry any message other than that 
of long association with the wilds. He shrugged his 
shoulders at Harne’s remark, and as they tramped 
the highway there were other whites here and there 
who dropped some aimless task and swung in behind 
him. They reached the first saloon in a little cluster. 


THE TOLL OF THE RAPIDS 61 

“Pm looking for my friends,” Harne added, “that 
is all.” 

He was thankful to find Garry and Gilvert leaning 
against the bar, the latter with a huge glass in his 
hand, and talking in a querulous tone. In the flash 
of that, Harne saw many things; and he knew in¬ 
stantly that this was no task to have set for one with 
the youth of Hartley Garry. For Gilvert, with a pre¬ 
tense of drunkenness, was insolent; he was baiting 
Garry, and the latter was standing back, with lips 
drawn firm, and with his hands at his side. It was 
a tableau, quite legible on the surface, and reaching 
backward to the brain of Abner Gilvert. 

He was baiting Garry. He wanted violence, for 
some reason of his own. That spelled friendship and 
backing in Cordova. Perhaps even there would be 
some crude form of the law to work out its slow 
processes in this remote corner of the world; some 
law which would hold Garry, and himself perhaps, 
while it left Abner Gilvert as free as the winds. 

And as yet the full race had not been run to Valdez. 

Harne forgot the stranger at his side, and he 
stepped between Garry and Gilvert. A shade of an¬ 
noyance touched Gilvert’s face for an instant only; 
then he leaned forward with the gesture of a drunken 
man and thrust some liquor towards Harne. 

“Gents,” he roared in semi-maudlin voice, “this 
one’s on Ab Gilvert, and any hyena what’s got a throat 
can step up and wet it in honor of the whitest man 


62 


BLACK GOLD 


what ever struck the Chitina. And that’s my old 
friend, Rupe Harne, what I been telling you pulled 
me off that hell of a rock up the Copper. Gents, I’m 
giving you the name of good old Rupe Harne. 
Here’s to him.” 

There were others, of like nature, but there was no 
further suggestion of baiting Hartley Garry. There 
was, as well, the surety that Gilvert’s intoxication was 
for the most part external, that the brain was working 
beyond; and because of that, Harne knew that the 
man was still fighting. 

So it became a matter of importance when Gilvert 
suggested added comfort for the balance of the trip 
to Valdez, in the form of a high-nosed kayak. 

“More room, stretch our legs,” he explained, with 
but little of the drunkenness left, “I’ll work myself, 
do as much as two men.” 

Gilvert was obliging, too much so; and he developed 
a sudden longing to forsake the saloon friendships of 
Cordova. For that he had an explanation in the form 
of a newly-acquired mannerism, and that was a con¬ 
stant and nervous glancing over his shoulder. Those 
glances seemed always to rest upon the white stranger 
whose eyes had shown such shrewdness at Harne’s 
mention of a land office; and when they became per¬ 
sistent and almost spiteful, Garry felt that a further 
explanation might be useful. 

“That is really a white man you are staring at, Gil¬ 
vert,” he volunteered. “You didn’t dig him up from 
the hooch bottle, and he has only two eyes; he walks 


THE TOLL OF THE RAPIDS 


63 

on two legs like the rest of us, and though he is hang¬ 
ing about a lot, the only thing I don’t like about 
him is that beacon he is wearing in the place of 
hair.” 

“Huh!” Gilvert seemed to have forgotten his in¬ 
toxication entirely, “the thing I don’t like about him 
is the gang he’s got. I’ve been counting them, and 
I’m thinking it ain’t hooch what tells me there’s three. 
And that wouldn’t be so bad if the man wasn’t the 
Red Rover himself.” 

Garry laughed but Gilvert was sombre enough. 

“No laughing matter,” he rebuked, “I’ve seen that 
gang before, up North, and there ain’t a good thing 
I could say about the lot of them. They’d stick red 
hot pokers to your feet if they thought you was try¬ 
ing to hide a gold-find from them; so the quicker 
we get out of this hole the better.” 

That might pass for an explanation of Abner Gil- 
vert’s sudden desire to leave Cordova and for the 
interest which he displayed in the selection of a kayak; 
for it was a fact that the Red Rover and his followers, 
to the number of four and promising still further in¬ 
creases, were perched upon the bank of the river 
watching the preparations for the trip to Valdez. 
They displayed interest; occasionally one of them 
sauntered down to the dock with unimportant sug¬ 
gestions and with a great curiosity; but their attitude 
was less surprising to Rupert Harne than was Gil- 
vert’s newly-found strain of helpfulness. There might 
be danger from the Red Rover, but it was hardly the 


6 4 


BLACK GOLD 


type of danger which might still be expected from 
Abner Gilvert. 

“What do you make of him? ,, he asked Garry, the 
moment he could get Gilvert out of earshot. 

“I haven’t forgotten the night of the potlatch,” the 
youth recalled, “sour at first, then like a sugar cane.” 

Harne nodded; for that did seem to be the real 
explanation, that the man was still fighting. 

The kayak slipped out into the Copper; the Red 
Rover and his followers watched solemnly from the 
shore, and Gilvert gave a great sigh of relief. For 
a time, as they glided down the river, Harne pondered 
the situation, and while instinct told him that the 
sighing of Abner Gilvert was as uncertain as the 
rapids in the waters above them, he failed to read be¬ 
yond the surface and find wherein there could still be 
trickery. 

Gilvert looked up suddenly and found Harne’s eyes 
upon him, and he smiled freely, and gladly, like a 
boy. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE WIT OF ABNER GILVERT 

The kayak, though roomy and comfortable, was a 
slow form of travel in spite of the apparent industry 
of Abner Gil vert; so when at length they crept past a 
craggy shore and saw the unfolded panorama of Val¬ 
dez before them, the flaming sunset was pouring 
out its glory upon the sky. In a more southern land, 
that would have marked the hours of darkness; but 
just now, with the last glitter of the sun flashing back 
from the gilded peaks, and with the slopes beneath 
them cast in shadow, the scattered dwellings of Valdez 
looked gaunt and ghostly, mere refuse of humanity 
dropped by chance into the giant scale of the 
mountains. 

“The land office,” said Harne, even while he rubbed 
some of the weariness from his limbs. 

“Parks keeps it at the back of his store,” Gilvert of¬ 
fered. “A riff-raff place, but he is a decent sort if you 
take him right.” 

They found the place, a lifeless shack anchored 
obliquely upon a rocky slope of ground; but though 
Harne knocked many times there was no answer. 

Twilight settled down upon them, the ragged streets 
were quite deserted, the few places of business were 
65 


66 


BLACK GOLD 


closed, and this lifeless town, with its deserted streets 
caught in the northern twilight, took upon itself the 
ghostly aspect of death and dust and decay. It was 
almost like the skeleton of a life which once had been; 
and as Garry looked upon the gloominess of its shad¬ 
ows, a thought came to him sharply. 

The canoe would have brought them here before 
this death-like day settled down upon the people; and 
it was Gilvert who had advised the slow-moving kayak. 
Yet to what purpose? For in this moment Gilvert 
himself seemed worried. 

“The wrinkles won’t get you anywhere,” Garry 
spoke impatiently. “Just why did you want us to ar¬ 
rive after this tomb had closed for the night, Gilvert?” 

But Gilvert merely thrust that aside with a gesture. 

“Parks puts up at the Golden Arms,” he came out 
of his meditation. “That is across the way, a half 
block down. We’ll get him out now. How does that 
sound ?” 

“.Reasonable,” Harne admitted, still puzzled; for 
the mere fact that Gilvert had suggested anything 
which would smooth out even the smallest of their 
troubles was a matter which had to be considered 
upon its own foundation. 

At the Golden Arms they found Parks, a little 
weazened man, querulous, with shifty eyes, and with 
the outcropping of a peppery mood which voiced itself 
freely against this indignity of a midnight wakening. 

“What you want?” he demanded; then as his glance 
rested upon Gilvert his peevishness moderated. 


THE WIT OF ABNER GILVERT 67 

“Good old Parksey,” Gilvert greeted him, “didn’t 
expect to see me at this time of night, did you, 
between the hours of sunset and sunrise? But I’m 
here, and these are friends of mine. Meet Mr. Harne 
and Mr. Garry.” 

Parks acknowledged their presence with a shifty 
nod, but the bulk of his attention appeared to be de¬ 
voted to Gilvert. 

“What’s yer friends wanting?” Parks demanded, 
ungraciously. 

“I have some coal claims to locate,” Harne took 
up the reply. 

Parks emitted a throaty sound which may have been 
astonishment or disapproval; then he replied: 

“Pity you hadn’t the head to wait till morning. 
Can’t you see I ain’t got enough clothes on to tramp 
the streets?” 

“But an active young boy like you can soon throw 
yourself into clothes,” Harne encouraged. “Besides, 
there’s enough in it for you to lubricate any sore 
joints.” 

“I’ve heard that talk afore,” Parks returned grudg¬ 
ingly. “A man pulled me out once afore, and he give 
me a copper claim fer my trouble. It ain’t been no 
good but to pay taxes on. Why can’t you wait till 
morning; they ain’t been no claims of any kind reg¬ 
istered here fer months. We don’t move so gol- 
darned fast that a day or two’s gonter hurt you. . . 

“Don’t stand there wearing out your tongue, 
Parks,” Gilvert broke in impatiently. “You heard 


68 


BLACK GOLD 


what I said. These are friends of mine and they want 
to locate their claims now. So don’t argue.” 

Parks continued his argument, but that did not in¬ 
terfere with his efficiency in the matter of dress. 

“What’s the idea, helping us out this way?” Garry 
asked, in astonishment. 

“My disposition. Call it gratitude, anything you 
like, for you did pull me off that rock.” 

“Regardless of the conditions which put you there,” 
Harne added. 

“Just as you say,” Gilvert conceded. 

“Does it mean that you are accepting defeat 
gracefully?” 

“If you call this gracefully,” Gilvert waved one 
hand with a magnanimous gesture. 

“You will at least admit that you have forfeited 
any right to the second claim which I offered 
you.” 

“Did you offer me a claim?” Gilvert asked in sur¬ 
prise. “I am quite in your hands; no ill feelings if 
you give me a tag-end claim down the river.” 

“That is precisely what you will get; and if Maneto 
told the truth it is foolish to give you that.” 

“Too bad you don’t know Maneto better,” Gilvert 
returned. 

Parks grudgingly led the way to the land office; he 
opened his books in the same spirit, and his attitude did 
not change through the brief record of the claims. In 
a few minutes it was over. In addition to his own 
claim, Harne located four, one for Garry, one for 


THE WIT OF ABNER GILVERT 69 

Marcile by proxy, one for Maneto, and the other for 
Gilvert. 

At the Golden Arms, before he slept, Harne re¬ 
flected upon the strange, fluctuating character of 
Abner Gilvert; and he told himself in the end that it 
would be much more pleasant to know for a certainty 
that the father of Marcile had not set himself 
against them. 

For many hours he slept, then abruptly, out of the 
depths of a nagging dream, he found himself wide 
awake. That had been a strange dream, a vivid thing, 
though doubtless absurd. It could be no more than 
a reflex of the strain through which he had passed; 
for he had imagined that he was back in the valley 
of the Chitina, looking through the doorway of Ma- 
neto’s cabin towards the entrance to the mine. Then 
along came a huge grinning figure which snatched 
up the cabin and the tunnel and the surrounding hills, 
and flitted into the air. And when the figure turned 
its face towards him it was Abner Gilvert, and the 
face was mocking him with queer words: 

“From sundown to sunrise. From sundown to 
sunrise.” 

He tried to forget that dream, in the pleasure of 
facing a day without struggle; and for a time he 
did forget it, until the persistent harping of that phrase 
kept dinning itself into his ears. Where had he heard 
those seemingly irrelevant words before? Where 
had he heard them? 

The answer came like a flash of light. 


70 


BLACK GOLD 


They had been a part of Gilvert’s greeting to Parks. 
The agent had been surprised to see Gilvert; but what 
could that have to do with this absurd group of words? 

Gilvert had remarked that Parks would be sur¬ 
prised to see him between the hours of sundown and 
sunrise— But what could that mean, if it meant any¬ 
thing at all? 

Harne sprang up abruptly. 

He believed he had it now. It was months since 
he had read the regulations of mineral location, but 
now it came to him with a flash that he had seen that 
phrase before. 

Only it was the reverse. 

It had said that lands must be recorded between the 
hours of sunrise and sunset. A technical point, of 
course; a minor thing, merely for the protection of 
land offices in the case of claim rushing; yet capable 
of something vastly more formidable than that, for 
in spite of the labor of the years, his claims might not 
be claims after all! 

Harne leaped to the floor. He reached the window 
and looked for the sun, but the endless mists had 
blotted it out. 

What time could it be? Had Gilvert re-located 
those claims, and become the rightful owner? His 
watch stopped! So he had been sleeping for many 
hours. 

He looked from the window again. People were 
tramping along the crooked street. Perhaps that 
meant nothing, or everything. 


THE WIT OF ABNER GILVERT ji 

Harne threw his clothes about him; and from the 
window he saw the plodding citizens, shrouded in the 
mists of the lisiere. 

He saw Parks’ office, with a man walking up to 
the doorway. Morning or noon, he could not say. 
But the man was Parks; and perhaps there would be 
time to re-locate those claims himself; or perhaps it 
was chance, and Gilvert had given the point never a 
thought. 

Vet . . . God! There was Abner Gilvert, saunter¬ 
ing down the gloomy highway of Valdez. Already 
he was past the Golden Arms. 

Harne pounded upon Garry’s door, and thrust his 
head inside. 

“Hurry, Hart. The land office.” 

Then he rushed into the highway which Gilvert was 
following. 

Already Gilvert was half-way to the land office, and 
as Harne broke into a run with a clatter of his 
feet upon the rocky way, Gilvert turned and looked 
over his shoulder. The man quickened his pace a 
little, but there was about him no evidence of ex¬ 
citement. 

Harne was less than ten yards behind when the 
land office door closed in his face; and when he 
reached out to grasp the knob he found that it was 
fastened from within. Parks also was inside, and the 
recording registers. 

So Abner Gilvert was still fighting. 

A slow anger was creeping over Harne, but he 


72 


BLACK GOLD 


fought it back. There are times, he knew, when 
anger wins nothing. 

He stepped to the window, and with one wrench 
he forced the sash upward, and he stepped through into 
the room beyond. 

Gilvert was standing alone, and he was calling for 
haste from Parks whose footsteps sounded from the 
inner office. Harne did not catch the words; their 
significance counted for little, for the thing which mat¬ 
tered now was the face of Abner Gilvert. He must 
study that face and find in its betraying flashes the 
confession of guilt. 

Yet Gilvert stood there, leaning against the counter, 
seemingly indifferent to Harne’s presence, and caring 
least of all for his unconventional mode of arrival. 

“Well Gilvert, what does this mean?’’ he demanded. 

The other turned about carelessly. 

“Oh, it’s you,” he said; then his glance flitted on. 
Only then did he seem to be aware of the open win¬ 
dow; and the sole expression on his swarthy counte¬ 
nance was one of mild wonder. “It is a handy way to 
get in,” he admitted, “though I have always used 
the door myself.” 

“I say your game was fairly clever,” Harne was 
disappointed at the lack of confession on the other’s 
features, “but you have failed by the narrow margin 
of five minutes. It didn’t quite go over.” 

Those lines upon Gilvert’s face must be real won¬ 
der; either that or he was an accomplished actor. 

“You amaze me,” he said, “as you have done ever 


THE WIT OF ABNER GILVERT 73 

since I first laid eyes upon you. I come this morning 
to do a little business with Parks, and presto, you 
arrive upon the scene like the heavy villain in the 
show. Still, it is entertaining.” 

“Business?” Harne laughed. “So important that 
you had to lock the door in my face?” 

“Still amusing,” Gilvert was apparently trying to 
be pleasant, “but of course too much of it could be¬ 
come wearying. You pain me when you suggest that 
I would lock any door in your face. See, it is quite 
as it should be. . . 

Gilvert’s hand reached out, tested the door; and 
then a little surprise came to his features. For a 
time he shook at the barred door, as though confused, 
then he laughed quite harshly. 

“It is the bar,” he pronounced. “Must have shaken 
down when I entered. But I assure you, Harne . . .” 

“Assure me nothing. Step aside, instead, while I 
do a little business with Parks.” 

The latter was staring across his counter in a 
curious way, with eyes blinking, and with a flash of 
momentary alarm upon his unalluring countenance. 

“Ready for me, Parks?” Gilvert asked, as he 
stepped calmly forward. Parks held open an inner 
door, and Gilvert was moving towards it when Harne 
stepped before him. 

“You do not quite grasp the situation, Gilvert,” 
Harne spoke slowly. 

“Except that I was here first, and my business is 
urgent.” 


74 


BLACK GOLD 


“Precisely,’’ Harne agreed, “but I am wondering, 
Gilvert, which you are, fool or scoundrel. I am in¬ 
clined to say a little of both, and that each strain 
handicaps the other. Except for that, you would 
have re-located my claims hours ago.” 

“Claims?” Gilvert’s voice was under careful con¬ 
trol, and his surprise was so near the genuine that 
for a time Harne studied him through half-closed 
eyelids. “Claims ? Re-locating claims. What do you 
mean by that, Harne?” 

Their glances met, and held for a time; and slowly, 
second by second, the surprise and the wonder faded 
from Gilvert’s glance, and in their place came the 
cloud of an anger which he could not wholly control. 
Then his gaze slipped from Harne’s eyes to some ob¬ 
ject just above his shoulder. 

“You are, Gilvert, at least a worthy foe, if not a 
noble one,” Harne returned. “I see that I do not need 
to explain anything about the re-location of claims; 
and you are ready to admit that my business is more 
pressing than yours. You will notice, as well, that 
Garry has just arrived. Not that I would care to de¬ 
cide the issue on a show of strength.” 

Gilvert’s glance came back to Harne’s eyes for an 
instant, flashed and then passed on. 

The man waved his hand, and bowed with mock 
politeness. 

“I submit, before the force of numbers,” he said, 
with an air of resignation. “Parks, my poor business 
can wait. This is the gentleman* who saved my life; 


THE WIT OF ABNER GILVERT 


75 

and once again I must bow to him in gratitude.” 

So he bowed, with mockery in his eyes and man¬ 
ner; and when Harne had re-located the claims, he 
followed to the doorway and spoke in a thick whisper. 

“Life is apt to become a burden, with a debt such 
as that hanging upon one; so, Harne, if you will make 
out the full bill of my gratitude and send it all at 
once, I may be able to shake off the shackles. You 
will oblige me, Harne.” 

Gilvert turned back, and he found Parks standing 
inside the counter, white-lipped and trembling. He 
looked at the man for a time and knew him for a 
weakling, in body, if not in intellect. Then he shook 
his head sorrowfully. 

“Oh, Parksey,” he said, “how you messed things 
up.” 

“Me? What could I do,” the other barked back, 
“with him standing there with a gun bulging out of 
his pocket? Now I suppose you’ll blame me when 
the big man comes in from the East. You’ll say I 
bungled.” 

Once more Gilvert shook his head, but not in sor¬ 
row; and one finger was waving up and down in 
front of Parks’ face. 

“Parksey, just keep your little eye on Ab Gilvert,” 
he was saying, quite harshly, “and then you’ll see 
he ain’t even gone to the mat yet. All you got to do 
is hold up your end; and if you don’t do that, you’re 
apt to get introduced first hand to the process of skin¬ 
ning skunks.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE MISSING MARCILE 

Judgment might dictate that the next step should 
be a trip to the South, with a visit to Swedevaris 
Pellinger and his money marts; but there was still 
the Chitina, and Marcile. 

There was Marcile, who was but a part of the 
crudeness of the land itself; Marcile, who must grow 
up with the wild splendor of her native hills, or who 
must drop to the level of whatever commerce came 
to her river’s edge. 

“Besides,” Harne decided their immediate course, 
“I need more details about the mine and the railway 
route before I can present the case properly to 
financiers.” 

That might be a half subterfuge, but even so, it 
would not be fair to Marcile to step out of her life 
like some light of hope which had been snapped asun¬ 
der. Nor would it be all safety to step into it again. 

When they reached the Chitina, the yellow rays of 
the sun still slanted down over the broad valley, the 
sky was curtained by the same fleecy clouds, the river 
still sang its old turbulent song, the pale green of the 
river-land crept up to blend with the blue of the hills 
76 


THE MISSING MARCILE 


77 

in the same old way, but over and above it all there 
was a mysterious sense of loss. 

Maneto met them at the crude dock and listened 
phlegmatically while Harne told of the race to Val¬ 
dez; and it was only at the mention of the claim reg¬ 
istered in his behalf that the Nootka showed a flare 
of interest which could not be held under control. 

“For me? Nootkas can’t take up coal lands. The 
law don’t allow it.” 

“That is all right,” Harne informed. “This is once 
we beat the law; I hold the claim for you. You see, 
it is really yours.” 

“You do that for me?” Maneto returned, with a 
level voice, but with an added flame in his eyes. 

“You get the right idea,” Garry interposed. “We 
have put you on your way to wearing diamonds in 
your ears. But in the meantime, what has happened 
to the wildcat?” 

“Wildcat?” Maneto groped for a time. “Oh, Mar- 
cile. She’s gone up the river, to the missioner.” 

Then he turned and made his way with calm dig¬ 
nity towards the Indian village. 

“Do you suppose that’s true?” Garry demanded, as 
he watched the retreating figure. 

Harne considered for a time. 

“Why shouldn’t it be?” he asked. “The missionary 
lives at Copper Center, and as far as we know, Maneto 
has played the white game with us from first to last.” 

For a time they gave their attention to engineering 
details, and then, as the days slipped into a week and 


BLACK GOLD 


78 

still there was no Marcile, Harne found himself work¬ 
ing with an undercurrent of restlessness. In time he 
asked himself if it really could be possible that he 
had looked forward to seeing Marcile again; and ask¬ 
ing that, he found himself flooded with thoughts 
which he had intended to drive from him. 

He remembered the smouldering embers of emotion 
which had sprung to Marcile’s eyes when, at her re¬ 
quest, he had pressed her lips paternally. Those 
kindling embers, he had known instinctively at the 
time, were for him. They had seemed a promise, or 
a warning, that she would wait for his return; and 
because of that he had half feared that Marcile would 
be the first to welcome them again to the Nootka vil¬ 
lage. Yet when she did not welcome him, he was 
restless. 

Harne tried to gain a better grip upon himself. He 
told himself it was not the girl’s greeting for which 
he waited, but that he merely looked for an opportu¬ 
nity to correct those lights which had flashed to her 
brown eyes and which had burned so keenly for a 
time. He remembered all too well their brief ac¬ 
quaintance, their abrupt parting, the swift manner in 
which he had been forced to leap all his careful plati 
for regulating her attitude towards himself; and he 
told himself that something must still be done. Mar¬ 
cile, though beyond the years of a child, was still a 
child. She must be the child; and he must be 
paternal. 

It was still his duty, bound as he was, to check the 


THE MISSING MARCILE 


79 


flame in those brown eyes before it leaped beyond 
the age of childhood and burned into her soul the 
instincts of womanhood. For Harne could not hide 
from himself the conviction that in Marcile, young 
as she was, was the unfathomable gift of hatred or 
of love. She had come under the potent spell of the 
whimsical northland which recognizes but two ages, 
infancy and maturity, and perhaps even now she was 
leaping the boundary line from one age into another. 

“She is probably looking for us to make calls, like 
formal courtiers/’ Garry suggested, when their work 
was nearly finished. “When last we saw her, she 
was a mountain goat, but now, you can never tell.” 

Harne nodded slowly. 

“So we go North,” Garry interpreted, “just to 
check up?” 

Harne looked at him strangely for a time, so 
strangely that he could almost fancy the growth of a 
new cloud upon their horizon. 

“Yes, just to check up,” said Harne; but that, he 
knew, was only part of the truth. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE WATCHER OF THE HEIGHTS 

Marcile sat upon a cliff high above the Copper 
River, and she looked down upon the world at her 
feet. Before her, winding over to the south, was the 
thread of the river, forcing its way through the val¬ 
ley, until at last it was lost in that misty grey haze 
of horizon where hills and valley and river and sky 
blended into the monochrome edge of the world. In 
the foreground was Copper Center, a mere cluster of 
shacks which life had sown there upon the banks of 
the river; at her back was the home of the missionary, 
the Rev. Alexander Juneau, and there was little to 
distinguish it from those other shacks by the river. 

The girl sat upon the cliff, with eyes turned ever 
to the south. It was here she came each day; and 
when the missionary questioned her as to the fears 
or hopes which might lie beyond the southern horizon, 
she shook her head and laughed. 

“I watch for someone/’ she said. “He comes, per¬ 
haps ; perhaps not, but I watch just the same.” 

“Surely you do not mean that you ran away from 
your father, and that you have angered him?” the 
Rev. Alexander Juneau asked anxiously. “Your fa- 
80 


THE WATCHER OF THE HEIGHTS 81 


ther, ma petite, he is an angry man at times. He 
would not like it were he to find you here. ,, 

“And why, Mr. Missioner? Are you not a good 
man? Is it not right that I should be here?’ , 

“It is quite right that you should be here. Mais, 
chere petite, your father does not like me. He has 
told me. . . 

“Told you what, Mr. Missioner ?” Marcile asked, 
with another laugh. 

But the Rev. Mr. Juneau merely shook his head 
and turned away. There was something about Abner 
Gilvert which he could not understand. As for him¬ 
self, he was a lone man in the North, placed by cir¬ 
cumstances amid rough surroundings, and all but 
crushed by the coldness of the land and the callousness 
of its humanity. Who was he that he should oppose 
the stronger will of Abner Gilvert? 

Marcile sat upon the cliff, as she had done through 
many another day, and her gaze searched the far 
spaces of the river. No canoe could come from the 
South while she sat here, without her seeing it and 
judging its occupants. 

While Marcile watched, she began to dream of the 
world which must lie off there, far beyond that grey- 
shrouded horizon. 

It was that mystic, unreal land of the South from 
which the white men came; it was the land around 
which old Maneto had woven his alluring tales. It 
was the same land towards which she had gazed in 
vain from the highest peak behind the Chitina Valley 


82 


BLACK GOLD 


which her hardy young limbs could conquer. She 
had gazed towards that land, but never had it told 
her its full story. Always its vastitude, its hopeless 
unattainment, had fought her down, had driven her 
back to the valley with a dullness of mind which she 
did not understand. It had always been the same, 
from the first she could remember of her childhood. 

Always in her life with the Nootkas there had been 
hills such as those she now gazed upon. And 
wherever she went she had climbed those hills. In¬ 
stinctively her face had turned to the South, as though 
out in the vast, mysterious world beyond there was 
some thong tugging at her heart, as though there 
were some voice pleading with her, some inner whis¬ 
pering cry which said that only in the South could 
she find balm for this nameless something which op¬ 
pressed her. 

With each year she grew stronger, she had climbed 
higher along the mountain rim; but the reward, or 
the rebuke, had ever been the same, just as inspiring, 
just as quelling. For no matter how high she climbed, 
she had never yet seen beyond the barrier ridge stand- 
ing guard between the child and the land which was 
calling to her in some unknown tongue. Each time she 
climbed she could see a little more of the spreading 
valley, a little more of the winding river, a little more 
of the bald-crested peaks, but always when she told 
herself that just here must be the last rim which 
hemmed in this mighty valley, always there lay a blue 
ridge beyond. It was this eternal climbing up the un- 


THE WATCHER OF THE HEIGHTS 83 

ending hills, this striving for the unattainable, for 
something which she had never yet been able to put 
into words, which had made of Marcile something 
older than the child. 

Upon the day when Harne and Garry paddled away 
to do battle with Abner Gilvert, Marcile climbed 
again; but the men were never to know it as the day 
when she reached the highest point in her struggle. 
On that day she fancied she glimpsed something white 
beyond the blue-grey peaks. It was on that same day 
she turned north from Chitina to Copper Center. 

Marcile came out of her dreaming into a wider 
consciousness. For a black speck down there upon 
the Copper River had drawn her glance; it was a 
speck which moved and grew into the definite shape 
of a canoe with two men forcing their way against 
the sluggish current. And then, when that canoe 
drew closer, she sat abruptly erect and her eyes took 
on a brighter gleam. 

Harne and Garry pulled up beside the Copper 
Center dock, which was nothing more than a boom 
of logs floating upon the water; and when the curious 
hangers-on left him an opening, Harne spoke to 
Garry: 

“Better go up to the missionary’s alone, Hart.” 

Garry stared for a moment; then he turned and 
made his way up the cliffs along the river’s bank. 

“Hi, young face, where you going?” a voice 
greeted him. 

Above him was the figure of the girl, lying prone 


8 4 


BLACK GOLD 


upon the rock and peering over its rim; and through 
a moment while he stood staring at the picture of 
Marcile, Garry was conscious of a quick stirring of 
the young blood in his veins. For, with the giant 
framework of rock and sky about her, with the keen¬ 
ness of her brown face and the dancing of her eager 
eyes, she was in that instant the symbol of the North 
and its fickleness. There, above him, was the face 
of Youth, with all time and eternity and the blue sky 
beyond it; and in his heart was an answering cry. 

“Hello, mountain goat,” he called in reply, “doesn’t 
it strike you that it would be a bit more fitting to the 
occasion if you were to pay your respects down here 
by the river?” 

“Pay my respects? What’s that? If you want to 
talk to me you gotta climb up here, young fellow.” 

“Suppose I don’t want to talk to you.” 

Marcile laughed gaily. 

“You can’t fool me like that. But what brought 
you fellows to the Center? Ain’t you satisfied with 
one mine?” 

Garry scrambled up the last few yards of the cliff, 
and as Marcile merely sat up, cross-legged, he dropped 
down upon the rock at her side. 

“It isn’t a mine this time,” he declared, “it is some¬ 
thing much more unmanageable, and I happen to be 
looking straight at it. It’s got a turned-up nose, one 
squint eye and a crooked ear, looks a bit dog- 
eaten . . 


THE WATCHER OF THE HEIGHTS 85 

“Smarty,” the girl laughed. “But you can’t fool 
me. You come all the way from Chitina to see me; 
but what’s Rupe say about it?” 

“Oh, Rupe? He doesn’t count. He’s a big bloke; 
I just brought him along because he knows how to 
sling a paddle. . . 

Marcile’s eyes flashed into sudden anger. Words 
trembled on her lips; then when she caught the twinkle 
in Garry’s eyes she abruptly controlled herself and 
smiled again. 

“Big bloke? That means nice big man, hey? Nice 
man who could take boys like Meester Garry and 
spank ’em?” 

Garry scarcely heard the words, for he was lost in 
the sudden consciousness that this trip to Copper 
Center might not have been a wise one after all. 
There are times when cruelty is better in the end; and 
as he watched the flashing of the eager brown eyes, 
and thought of the uncouthness of her primitive emo¬ 
tions when set up against the prim standards of Edith 
Pellinger, he caught a swift glimpse of the tragedy 
which lay between. 

“You ain’t told me if you beat him to Valdez,” 
the girl’s voice had grown soft, with a trace of 
diffidence. 

“Him? Oh, you mean your father. . . . Sure, we 
beat him all right.” 

“That’s good,” she exclaimed, with such a savage 
little flare of temper that Garry again wondered. 


86 


BLACK GOLD 


“That’s cheering for the wrong side, from the 
family standpoint,” Garry became paternal. “You 
shouldn’t line up against your Dad.” 

“Shouldn’t?” she exclaimed. “He didn’t like me 
any better than to give me to an Indian; and I don’t 
think anybody ever liked me.” 

“Guess again, Marcile,” Garry advised. “Look 
straight in front of your eyes and you’ll find somebody 
who likes you.” 

“Perhaps,” Marcile conceded, totally unmoved, “but 
how do I know Rupe likes me?” 

Garry considered the problem of that. Perhaps it 
might be kindness in the end if he were to shatter the 
girl’s illusions, if he were to tell her the story of Edith 
Pellinger. Yet when he looked once more and saw 
the great wistfulness in her manner, he lacked the 
courage to blast that new blossom which he could see 
springing up in her youthful heart. 

“Sure he likes you,” Garry hurried over the point. 
“He has a lot to think about; but we have often talked 
about you.” 

“Maybe; but he didn’t hurry up here the minute 
he got into Copper Center, the way you did.” 

“That was an oversight,” Garry agreed, as he tried 
to laugh off the situation; but he shortly found that 
Marcile had become too serious for laughter. 

“I shouldn’t tell you this, Marcile,” he offered 
hastily, “but Rupe has given you a part of his mine.” 

In the brightness of Marcile’s eyes, Garry saw the 
reflection of his own folly. 


THE WATCHER OF THE HEIGHTS 87 

“You don’t mean it?” she exclaimed. “What’s he 
done?” 

“Registered a claim for you.” 

Marcile sprang to her feet; and it was only then 
that Garry saw the change in her personal appearance, 
for now she stood before him in the dress of a 
woman, or rather in the strange wreckage of some 
woman’s garb. Gone was the free, unrestraining cos¬ 
tume of the Nootka girl, and in its place there had 
come the drab dress of a girl who has become a 
woman before her time. When first he had seen Mar¬ 
cile, her beauty had been wild and rugged, with some 
of the wildness of the land itself; she had been the 
wistful, yet glowing, child of the Nootkas. Now she 
stood before him in a garment so fantastic as to be 
uncouth. 

“Why, why did you do it?” Garry gasped. 

It was a dress beyond her age, worn and frayed; 
and Garry saw in it the cast-off remnants which had 
been shipped north by some well-meaning charity. In 
a ball room, in its palmy days, this dress might have 
performed a remarkable function in advertising the 
physical charms of its wearer; but in this moment 
it was more than uncouth; it was pathetically an em¬ 
blem of the girl’s striving towards a life beyond her 
reach. 

Marcile stared in resentment, while Garry struggled 
with humor and pathos; and in the end, humor won. 
He stretched upon the rock and laughed with so much 
of the freedom of youth that at length Marcile for- 


88 


BLACK GOLD 


got the dignity of the dress she was wearing and 
began to register her protest with her clenched fists 
upon Garry’s ribs. 

'‘You sure are a sight for sore eyes,” he gasped 
again, when he set up to catch his breath. “I don’t 
pretend to be particularly well up in the social codes 
of the Chitina Valley, but if you’re right, then New 
York’s wrong, and Palm Beach still has a few pointers 
to pick up. A low-necked gown, with a train, in the 
middle of the afternoon, does make a stunning effect 
on the cliffs of the Copper River; still, big cities are 
sometimes slow to pick up the latest modes, though 
there is a chance for the theatres. They do catch 
onto things.” 

Marcile’s wide eyes were quivering; but in spite of 
that she was forcing a smile to her lips. 

“You laugh,” she spoke swiftly. “You think per¬ 
haps it is funny. But this dress came to the missioner. 
There is a picture in the missioner’s book showing 
a fine lady, and she wears a beautiful dress, just like 
this. You laugh, smarty, but perhaps it is too soon.” 

“You mean the missionary let you put that dress 
on?” Garry asked, more soberly. “I have heard of 
missionaries and . . .” 

“He didn’t let me do it, because he don’t know any¬ 
thing about it. I took it out of the box. . . . And 
ain’t you thinking this makes me a lady?” 

Garry found it difficult to answer the question as 
it should be answered. Marcile, it was evident, was 
struggling upward, and no matter how long she had 


THE WATCHER OF THE HEIGHTS 89 

been housed with the Nootkas, it was plain that she 
had broken some of the bondage of their barbarity and 
was now forcing her way through to the light. But 
in this moment Garry was pardonably doubtful as to 
the light which greeted her eyes. 

“Hasn’t the missionary taught you what a lady 
is?” he asked, to gain time. Marcile shook her head. 

“He ain’t ever said anything about it.” 

“But he surely must have taught you something 
which would let you work it out for yourself. ... Or 
rather, taking a look at the ball room creation, I guess 
he hasn’t.” 

“He ain’t ever taught me much of anything, ’cause 
he’s afraid. Dad told him he mustn’t.” 

Garry accepted that in silence, and for a time he 
drummed at the rock with the tips of his fingers. He 
looked down from the cliffs upon the drab life of 
Copper Center; he saw the mixture of whites and 
Aleuts, Nootkas and strays; he saw the mild activity 
of life as it was droned out in this far-off corner of 
the world, and he thought abruptly of ants which he 
had seen laboring endlessly upon their earthly habita¬ 
tion. Life was a tiny thing here, lost completely in 
such a setting of earth and hill and sky; and it was 
to this that Marcile had been condemned. 

“You mean you were to be left here, to grow 
up . . . wild?” 

“I don’t know what you mean, but I’m guessing 
that’s right. But I asked you if this dress didn’t make 
me a lady.” 


90 


BLACK GOLD 


Again Garry drummed for a time in silence, while 
he watched those ant-like figures down below. 

‘‘Since you’re back to the lady question, suppose 
you sit beside me while we talk it over. In that posi¬ 
tion you don’t remind me quite so much of the dead 
odor of roses, or champagne. Now what do you 
want to know?” 

“I’ve been asking—Does this dress make me a 
lady ?” 

Garry approached the matter reflectively. 

“I’ve got to be staid and say it isn’t the dress that 
makes the lady,” he decided. “Now get ready for a 
shock, Marcile, and listen to this. It is the woman 
herself who counts most. It is her manner, her in¬ 
stincts, her education, her way of talking, her atti¬ 
tude towards others, the way she does things, the 
things she likes, the ... it is everything about her. 
It is ... I can’t tell you, Marcile. It is just some¬ 
thing you recognize at once, but can’t define. . . . 
It is just everything. . . .” 

Garry paused helplessly before the girl’s mature 
question. The power of defining so simple a term 
had gone from him; it had been driven away by her 
crudity. 

“If I ain’t all them things now, could I be it?” 
Marcile persisted. 

Hartley Garry looked upon the girl before him, 
with her eyes bright and longing with the eagerness 
of the future, with hands clenched, and with her 


THE WATCHER OF THE HEIGHTS 91 

breath coming quickly because of that distant vision 
of things which must be seen other than with the eyes, 
and knew that Marcile had reached one of the crucial 
points of her life. She had reached one of the foot¬ 
hills which she must climb upward towards the sun¬ 
shine, or remain forever in the darkened valley. And 
the upward climb was the road to civilization; while 
in the valleys was the barbarity of the Nootkas. In 
Marcile it was instinct, he felt, and not knowledge, 
which pleaded that she be released from the valleys, 
which cried out for those unseen things beyond the 
hills, and which must be the reflection of some earlier 
generation of which she had never heard. 

Garry looked at the girl again, and he saw that 
her limbs and her soul were strong. Already she had 
put her feet upon the pathway which led outward. 
She had tasted the fruit of discontent, and never 
again could she know peace in the valley of the 
Nootkas. She must climb, no matter what the pain. 

Marcile’s future was something which Garry had not 
meant to attempt to decide by himself. It was a prob¬ 
lem which he had intended to place before Rupert 
Harne; but now Marcile herself had forced the decision 
upon him. No, it was not a decision for him to 
make. Marcile had already decided for herself. It 
only remained for him to say if he would hold out the 
helping hand. 

“Marcile,” he said calmly, “there is not a thing in 
the world to prevent you becoming as fine a lady as 


92 


BLACK GOLD 


the finest in the land. It is only a matter of time and 
education, for I believe you have the instincts. 
But . . ” 

Garry paused. For Marcile had abruptly broken 
into tears. For a moment he stared at her help¬ 
lessly, then he threw out his hands in a gesture of 
understanding. 

“She has found the way herself/’ he muttered. 
“She had found it even before I came. Besides, it 
would have been a sin to have kept hers the rude 
beauty of the wilderness. I can see what is prompt¬ 
ing you, Marcile, so may Heaven help you if you are 
not strong when you come to the end.” 

The girl brushed away the tears with a quick 
gesture. 

“What’s that you say, boy, about the end?” 

“We won’t talk about it now,” Garry replied, as 
he averted his face; then a moment later he added, in 
a lighter vein, “It seems to me a friend of yours is 
coming this way. Are you quite ready for callers, 
Marcile? Or is there a bit too much formality about 
you ?” 

Marcile glanced towards the river, and there she 
saw Harne making his way towards the missionary’s 
shack. 

“Good Lord!” she exclaimed, as she scrambled to 
her feet, “I gotta get outa here.” 

“Don’t you want to see Rupe?” Garry asked, with 
a laugh. 

“Not in these duds,” Marcile returned, as she be- 


THE WATCHER OF THE HEIGHTS 93 


gan to run across the cliffs towards the missionary’s 
home. 

Garry’s laugh followed her as she stumbled along, 
with her feet tangled in the train of the ball gown. 
Marcile shook a menacing hand at him, but she did 
not stop until she had passed through the doorway. 


CHAPTER X 


A TASTE OF KNOWLEDGE 

The missionary was small and goggled and iron- 
grey, with a severe black coat buttoned closely be¬ 
neath a weak chin. There was nothing prepossessing 
or dominating about the Rev. Alexander Juneau, and 
Harne found himself wondering how such an indeci¬ 
sive person could ever have been chosen to do battle 
with the hostile North. There was no indication that 
he had been intended as a leader of men; yet it did 
seem that, with another leading, he might tone down 
a few of the blacker spots of life. 

“My humble shack is always open to the friends of 
Marche,” he fumbled his hands in uncertain welcome; 
for he had seen other men and women of the North, 
with hearts which shaded from the tint of driven snow* 
to the darkening crimson of a violent sunset. 

He had seen men and women; he knew the black¬ 
ness of their hearts, and the purity. So he fumbled 
his hands in a distressed way, and he listened to 
sounds which came from within the cabin. They 
were the hurried movements of Marcile, who had 
fled at the sight of Rupert Harne; and yet she had 
spoken so kindly of them. 

It was a difficult world, to know men and their 
94 


A TASTE OF KNOWLEDGE 


95 


motives, to judge the secret pages of any man’s soul 
when all that lay open to the gaze was a face beaten 
and worn by the sternness of the North; a face, with 
a pair of calm eyes which looked out of the storms 
of the past with a message which seemed like peace, 
but which might be nothing more than the guile of 
the serpent. 

In time he believed he liked those eyes, and the 
eyes of Hartley Garry; for they at least did not look 
upon him with the scorn which had too often been 
his measure of reward in this land where brawn alone 
may be the scale of a man’s worth. 

And since he liked them, he talked, in a hungry 
way; he talked with the voice of a fellowship which 
has sacrificed in vain; and through those minutes he 
forgot the garb of the cleric and the duty of the 
missionary, and he became as a human being who 
has struggled and fought with burdens greater than 
he could bear. 

He talked of Marcile, and Abner Gilvert. 

He shivered with the mere mention of the man’s 
name, and he drew his garments more closely about 
him, as though in that instant he had remembered a 
long-forgotten duty. He spoke of Marcile and the 
part which he had feared to play in her life; and 
when Harne turned his glance away and stared for 
a time out across the valley of the Copper, he fell 
silent, as though he had come suddenly before his 
higher judge. 

“You could not help her?” Harne asked. 


9 6 


BLACK GOLD 


“Gilvert,” the man murmured; “he has been one 
of my crosses. He forbade me to teach her, and he 
is a stern man. She must grow up like a child of the 
North; must know nothing of the civilization which 
had been his ruin.” 

“That is what Abner Gilvert intends for her; but 
what are you going to do?” 

The missionary spread his hands aside with a ges¬ 
ture of resignation. 

“I am a lone man. What can I do? He has for¬ 
bidden me to teach her. He was quite violent about 
it; and I am alone, with little means. He would stir 
up the Nootkas against me; so what could I do but 
balance the good of Marcile against the good of 
scores ?” 

Harne did not answer that; and through the silence 
the missionary studied his visitors shrewdly. 

“Marcile has always been unusual,” he resumed, at 
length, “but she has been stranger still since coming 
from the Chitina. When last I saw her she was quite 
frankly the child. Now she tries to be the woman. 
Why is it, Monsieur?” 

It was to Garry he spoke, as though youth could 
best understand youth. 

“Since you ask it, I suppose it is the blood of Eve 
in her veins,” Garry returned. “What the first woman 
learned from the tree of knowledge, all others find 
in their own hearts.” 

“Too old,” the missionary laughed for the first 
time, “but she is coming now.” 


A TASTE OF KNOWLEDGE 


97 


When Marcile joined them, she was once more the 
child of the Nootkas. She greeted Harne frankly and 
gladly, yet with the well-restrained eagerness which a 
child might have shown; and then she dropped to a 
position upon the rock before him, cross-legged as 
Garry had found her upon the cliffs, and she listened, 
as youth might listen to the tales of its wandering 
elders. They talked, of the South, of the East, of 
cities great and small, of lands far away; they talked 
of the missionary’s faded hopes and the visions of his 
youth in distant lands; and then abruptly some of 
the fire of that long-lost youth swept back into the 
heart of the Rev. Alexander Juneau. 

He looked at Marcile, bright-eyed and trembling 
with her own smothered visions; he looked at the an¬ 
swering youth of Hartley Garry; then he studied the 
black-rolling slopes of the distant hills, and while he 
stood there his hands clenched and unclenched at his 
sides. 

“May Heaven forgive me, but I have been a cow¬ 
ard,he exclaimed in a low voice. “Gilvert con¬ 
demned her to the life of an Indian, and I had not the 
courage to fight him. He was strong, and I ... I 
thought I was weak. If only I were young like you/’ 

“Would it help you to know that our youth is be¬ 
hind you?” Harne asked quietly; and then for a time 
he watched the struggle which went on in the old 
frame. 

“Physical, bodily strength, the knowledge that I 
am not alone!” the man spoke more tensely. “What a 


98 BLACK GOLD 

coward I have been. But you must excuse me 
now . . 

The missionary broke off abruptly, in a high-pitched 
voice, and hurried into the cabin; and when Garry 
looked at Harne the latter’s eyes were upon Marcile. 

It was a pretty picture the girl made, in her wild, 
rude beauty, with her flashing eyes, and the rose of 
life shining through the brown of her cheeks, with 
the long, glistening braids of her hair looped about 
her shoulders, and with the trust of a child in her 
pose as she looked upward to meet the smouldering 
glance of Rupert Harne. A pretty picture she made, 
and yet a strange one, when one included the figure 
of the idol before her. For that was the flash of 
thought which touched Hartley Garry—that the man 
was some graven image, with solemn face and the 
troubled soul of a human, and that Marcile was the 
spirit of worship. 

Harne sat there through the drifting seconds, watch¬ 
ing and understanding the lights in the eyes of Mar¬ 
cile ; and as he watched, one hand crept up and swept 
across his brow. 

He watched while the points of rose in Marcile’s 
cheeks grew into livid tokens of flame, until they 
rushed up and flooded her as though in a gulf of 
emotion; and when she leaped abruptly to her feet 
and raced swiftly into the cabin, he watched until the 
last flicker of her skirt had vanished through the 
gloomy doorway. 

Silence fell about them for a time, while the giant 


A TASTE OF KNOWLEDGE 


99 


hills looked down in majesty, while the river murmured 
its languid way towards the sea, and while the heart of 
a girl beat more wildly because of that new and strange 
thing which was driving the blood through her 
veins with an unknown violence. 

Harne stirred restlessly, and he nodded absently at 
Hartley Garry. 

“It was a mistake, to come North,” he said aloud. 
“I wonder if cruelty would have been more kind in 
the end?” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE TEACHING OF MARCILE 

Harne and Garry remained at Copper Center 
through the week, and during that time there was not 
a day when the former did not see himself drawn far¬ 
ther and farther from the spirit of his teaching. His 
attitude towards Marcile was to be paternal; he was to 
break down, inch by inch, the castle of her dreams, and 
he was to rear in its place a solemn pyramid of respect 
and a dignified worship from afar. 

But Marcile’s frank guilelessness shattered the foun¬ 
dations of his pyramid even before they had been 
raised. She was youthful and frank and innocent, 
open-faced in her sentiments and most of all in her 
liking for him; and whenever he thought to break 
down her faith, there was always a shadowy hand 
which reached upward to hold him back. 

It would have been simple to tell Marcile the story 
of Edith Pellinger; yet whenever he came to the point 
there was something in the girl’s vivacity and uncon¬ 
scious trust which snatched the words from his lips. 
Through these days he was finding himself strangely 
reluctant to dim any of the gladness from her eyes, or 
to bring back any of the drooping lines to her young 
shoulders: and when he became conscious of that as 


ioo 


THE TEACHING OF MARCILE ioi 


a living thing he knew that his trip to Copper Center 
had been but a dismal failure. 

So he spoke to Garry, with the consciousness of 
failure upon him. 

“We go South, of course,” Garry agreed, “but what 
about the wild flower? The pickers are as plentiful in 
this part of the world as in any other.” 

“It isn’t exactly simple,” Harne admitted. “Not 
that we are afraid of Abner Gilvert; but what justifica¬ 
tion is there for two people, strangers practically, to 
step between a man and his daughter ? There may be 
a chance that he is sincere in wanting to keep her away 
from civilization. How do we know what sort of jolts 
he may have gotten in the past ? And suppose he really 
does think ... or know . . . that it would be best 
for Marcile in the end to be kept in the North.” 

Garry shrugged his shoulders with the impatience 
of youth. 

“Balderdash,” he exclaimed. “How could that sort 
of life be the best thing for any person, man or 
woman ?” 

Harne appeared to meet the glance of his companion, 
but in reality he was staring into the years to come. 
He had failed to guide her through to the right atti¬ 
tude, but there was another way. There was civiliza¬ 
tion which would win where he had failed. 

“Yes, there is the excuse of humanity,” Harne said 
quietly, “and it is for the missionary to show her the 
way.” 

When the matter was put before him, Juneau 


102 


BLACK GOLD 


straightened his figure to a little greater height; a flush 
of courage stole into the mildness of his features; and 
there seemed to fall from him some of the burden 
of the bondage of the North. 

“You are strangers, yes,” he spoke quickly, under 
strong impulse, “but you are not the only strangers 
who come into this land. There have been others, 
not your kind. There will be still more, many more, 
if what you have dreamed about the mine should ever 
come true. Marcile must not know them; or, if know¬ 
ing them, her eyes must be opened.” 

Juneau threw out his arms with a gesture of finality, 
and with a tragic trace of sacrifice. 

“Perhaps we do not know Gilvert,” Garry spoke in 
a bare whisper. 

“You do not!” 

The lights were burning brightly in the man’s eyes. 
For Juneau had not been without his days of rebel¬ 
lion. He had failed to understand life which had 
placed him among the bare shacks of Copper Center, 
with few who cared to listen to his ministrations, and 
yet fearing to serve the one who needed it most. 
There had been shackles holding him down; but now 
he seemed to sweep them aside by the returning 
strength of some long-lost will. 

“You are strangers, yes,” he repeated, “so it is my 
place to do the thing you have brought before me. I 
will teach Marcile.” 

Harne’s hand reached out and rested upon the man’s 
shoulder. 


THE TEACHING OF MARCILE 103 

“If it would mean anything to you to know that 
we are behind you,” he began, only to see the rekin¬ 
dling fires leaping more brightly in the eyes of Juneau. 

“Protect me? Yes. By thinking more kindly of 
me,” the man spoke in a high-pitched voice, swiftly, 
almost like one who seeks to overtake the past. “May 
Heaven pardon my failure, but I have been the cow¬ 
ard. I have feared to do my duty. I was alone; and 
Gilvert is a vicious man. But not all the Gilverts in 
the North could stop me now.” 

The increasing pressure of Harne’s hand was all 
the answer that moment needed. For a time they 
stood there, the man of hardened youth and the man 
of withered frame; their eyes met, and held, and be¬ 
tween them came understanding. 

There were minor points which must be smoothed 
away; there were books which must be sent North; 
but most of all there was secrecy which must be main¬ 
tained if Marcile were to be carried far along the path¬ 
way of knowledge and of civilization. 

Yet the importance of that secrecy was one of the 
first things to be grasped by Marcile when the altered 
course of her future was pointed out to her. 

“I’ll make Dad Gilvert think I’m getting more of 
a squaw every day,” she declared; then, with a touch 
of wistfulness, “I wonder if that wouldn’t please him 
so he’d like me more?” 

But she threw that mood quickly from her, for the 
prospect of the future had become a dazzling one. 
She was all youth and enthusiasm, and when she 


104 


BLACK GOLD 


looked at Harne there was something in her eyes which 
far transgressed the borders of gratitude. 

With arrangements completed, Harne and Garry 
stood in the early morning by the river’s edge; the 
latter was stolid, almost indifferent, but Harne was 
restless. 

“We should have slipped away before they were 
up.” Harne seemed to shrink from the immediate 
future. 

“A promise is a promise, even to a child of the Noot- 
kas,” Garry replied. 

Then Marcile and the Rev. Alexander Juneau 
joined them. The girl placed a parcel in one end of 
the canoe, then she appeared to take command of the 
situation. 

“Fried mallards,” she said. “Now you two get out 
of here; there ain’t any time to lose if you’re to get 
to Chitina by night.” 

Garry extended his hand and the girl took it quite 
casually. 

Harne did the same; but Marcile, instead of accept¬ 
ing it as she had taken Garry’s, leaped past the out¬ 
stretched hand and kissed him upon the cheek. Then 
she sprang away and hurried up the bank, and there 
she stood with a youthful laugh upon her lips. 

Both men waved to the girl and the missionary as 
the canoe slipped into the current, and as Garry 
watched the lithe figure poised against the background 
of hill and sky he was wondering what changes 
the teaching of Juneau would bring into her young 


THE TEACHING OF MARCILE 105 


heart. He recognized that it was youth and lack of 
contact with the ways of the world which had guided 
her recent action; but to-morrow, or the next day, or 
in the spring when he returned, when the teachings 
of the missionary had penetrated the barbarity of the 
Nootkas, what kind of a Marcile would he find? 

“This whole thing was a mistake,” said Rupert 
Harne, as the canoe swept past a rocky headland and 
blotted out all vision of the watching figures. 


CHAPTER XII 


A GIFT FOR PARKS 

The land agent faced them across his counter with 
a cold and cheerless greeting. 

There was, Harne fancied, a resentment in Parks’ 
attitude because of this questioning as to the where¬ 
abouts of Abner Gilvert. No, Parks did not know 
anything about Gilvert’s habits or dwellings, never 
had known and never wanted to know; hadn’t seen 
him of late, and didn’t want to see him; and further¬ 
more he added: 

“We got the habit of minding our own affairs up 
here; it don’t do any harm in the end.” 

That may have been administered as excuse or re¬ 
buke, but for the time being Harne was not dis¬ 
criminating. 

“Original theories should be copyrighted,” he re¬ 
turned. “The blow strikes home. We haven’t been 
minding our own business of late, for a couple of 
days ago we staked another claim; but we can’t use 
it ourselves. We have gone the legal limit. Hart 
thought of giving it to you, but if you think we are 
too free about it, I suppose we could raffle it off at 
the Golden Arms.” 

106 


A GIFT FOR PARKS 


107 


Parks’ features remained unchanged, though his 
gaze wandered. 

“I don’t blame you, Parks, for not getting excited,” 
Harne went on, “for nothing short of gold nuggets 
can stir up you Northerners. Still, all you have to 
do is sit still and ride in on our wave of prosperity.” 

Parks remained motionless, outwardly indifferent. 

“Come, jot down the location numbers,” Harne 
prompted, as he began to read off the figures. 

Only then did Parks come back to the land of real¬ 
ity; and when the little wistful eyes looked out of the 
weazened face and came to rest upon Harne’s counte¬ 
nance, they carried with them a strange conflict of 
emotions. 

“You mean it?” his voice was thick. “You are giv¬ 
ing me a claim? For what?” 

“Perversity, I suppose, or obstinacy,” Harne con¬ 
sidered the point. “Perhaps it is because you cannot 
go North to look after yourself.” 

The figures were droned off in a mechanical way; 
the land agent copied the numbers and watched Harne 
furtively from the corner of his eye, then he suddenly 
dropped the pen and stared straight before him. 

“My God!” he explained, “you’re a new one on me. 
We don’t do things like that up here.” Then, after 
a long pause, through which his gaze wandered to 
the window and back again, he muttered, “And it is 
close to the original claim . . . the numbers tell me 
that.” 

Again the figures were droned out; again the land 


io8 


BLACK GOLD 


agent moved his fingers mechanically; then this time 
he put down his pen carefully, precisely. 

“What do you do when a man don’t play you the 
square game?” he asked, with face averted. The 
panorama of the mountains showed through the win¬ 
dow, and for Parks it seemed to hold a fresh 
fascination. 

“Skin him, of course,” Garry said, lightly, “and 
sell his hide to the Nootkas.” 

Parks rose, with an air of briskness, crossed the 
room, deposited his records in a small safe; and a 
moment later his eyes met Harne’s deliberately. 

“This is no kind of a country for a man like me,” 
he said, as he measured his words. “It is the place of 
big men, the men who can fight. ...” 

He paused there, and a little fright crept into his 
eyes; and a whiteness stole into his cheeks. A mo¬ 
ment later there was weakness about the lips; he 
stepped forward, then he stepped back again. 

Harne and Garry crossed to the doorway, and Parks 
followed them, with the indecision still in his attitude. 
As they were turning away, he spoke again. 

“Since you’re friends of mine, there is no harm in 
telling you that Ab Gil vert has gone south.” 

“South? How far south?” Harne asked casually, 
with his eyes still upon the other. “And when did 
he go?” 

“To Sitka, the day after you went north.” 

A sudden weakness touched Harne, a weakness 
which was close to fear. 


A GIFT FOR PARKS 


109 


“Let me see those records,” he demanded finally. 

Parks crossed the room, and recrossed it; and when 
Harne studied the register of his mining claims he 
could find no cause whatever for that quick weakness 
of fear which had gripped him. So he leaned closer 
and looked into a face which had become impassive. 

“Why has Gilvert gone south?” he asked. 

“Out there in the sea, they tell me, the big fish eat 
the little fish, the bigger eat the big; and man eats the 
biggest.” 

Harne reflected through a moment of silence. 

“You mean there is somebody behind Gilvert?” he 
questioned; but Parks turned away and studied once 
more those far-off tips of the mountains. 

“I mean nothing of the kind,” he said, “I haven’t 
told you a single thing.” 

When Harne and Garry left the room, he was still 
peering at the distant hills as though they had become 
for him the only thing in the world worth while. 


CHAPTER XIII 


PELLINGER'S PROMISE 

So Abner Gilvert had gone to Sitka, for some pur¬ 
pose unknown. 

Yet when Harne and Garry reached the same point 
on their way south, it had little to tell them. Gilvert 
had cabled to New York; then he had moved on to 
Seattle; but beyond that his deeds were hidden be¬ 
hind the veil. The significance of that, if there were 
any, was so vague that it was shortly lost in the 
strange and fluctuating sentiments of the home-coming, 
for it was three years since last they walked the streets 
of the great city; and three years, Harne found shortly 
after his arrival in the East, can strew queer wreck¬ 
ages through the viewpoints of a man’s life. 

There was, for instance, an unexplained lassitude 
which had come upon him, an unwillingness to rush 
into business complications. It was not that he 
doubted his reception in the office or the home of 
Swedevaris Pellinger; it was, instead, that the life of 
the North had seemed to thrust aside the problems of 
the brain for those of the body. 

Then, for a time he found himself contemplating 
that chasm of three years; he found himself wonder¬ 
ing how best he might re-open the doorway leading 
no 


PELLINGER’S PROMISE 


III 


back to the old life which had meant so much to him 
and to Edith Pellinger. The old life; the old days; 
happiness, the joy, and the promise of victory. Now, 
just before him, was the brilliance of the future; and 
back there, in the gap of the past, was three years 
which had been snatched from his life. Three years, 
as the price of success! And the gap was yawning 
there, unforgettable, a lost chasm of the years, never 
to be bridged again, even at the end of Time. 

It was only when Harne came to feel something 
of the distance he had wandered from the life of the 
great city and the life of Edith Pellinger, that he sud¬ 
denly thrust that gap of the years from his thoughts. 
Yet it was the office, and not the home, of Swedevaris 
Pellinger which drew him first. 

Pellinger he found in the same upholstered chair, 
at the end of the same line of gilded cages, and the 
only changes Harne could observe were a few more 
rolls to the overly-indulgent face, and perhaps a little 
sharper gleam to the gleaming eyes. The man’s 
hand was moist, as it had been before; but the smile 
was right. 

“Harne, my dear fellow!” he exclaimed; and then 
for a time the moist hand clung to the hard and youth¬ 
ful one. And while the eyes were gleaming, Harne 
was glad that Swedevaris Pellinger was to be with, 
and not against him. There was much talk about 
that change which comes with the years; and now, with 
the passing of the minutes, Harne could not help 
but feel that the greatest change in Pellinger was the 


112 


BLACK GOLD 


slipping off of that surface vitality of their first greet¬ 
ing. There was still the fire in the man’s eye which 
gleamed from time to time, but there was a falling 
away somewhere, a loosening of grip perhaps, as 
though the greatest prizes of life were of the past. 

Swedevaris Pellinger sighed once; and then he 
smiled, in apology. 

‘‘The years tell on a person,” he said. “It is the con¬ 
stant money-grabbing which wears one away. Some 
of us tire of it. With others it is a germ which grows 
with age. Thank goodness, I am not that.” 

Harne’s upheld hands were an assumption of alarm; 
and the financier’s eyes grew bright with understanding. 

“Of course one makes exceptions for friends,” he 
added, “and somehow a person likes to make his 
biggest strike just before he puts down the tools. You 
see, New York knows much about you. Some news 
travels fast.” 

“Bad news always does.” 

“As well as the good kind which gets on the tele¬ 
graph wire. The time is past, Harne, when a pros¬ 
pector can make a strike and hide it under a bushel.” 

Harne grew restless. Publicity was not what he 
wanted just now. 

“You can be quite certain that I haven’t been talk¬ 
ing to any telegraph wire,” he returned. “That is 
about the last thing I would have done under the cir¬ 
cumstances. What has happened ?” 

“Look at this,” Pellinger tossed over a newspaper 
bearing the date of the week before. 


PELLINGER’S PROMISE 


113 

There, staring him in the face, was a despatch 
from Sitka, telling of his find on the Copper River, 
and speaking with marked optimism of its pos¬ 
sibilities for the future. That was not pleasing; 
yet . . 

“What difference can it make?’’ he asked aloud. 

“None/’ Pellinger decided, “except that it prepared 
me for something better.” 

Harne talked then, long, and with growing enthu¬ 
siasm; he told of the wonders of the North; he told 
of the three years of struggle and of the defeat which 
had glowered upon him; he grew flushed of cheek 
and eager of tongue when he thought and spoke of 
those myriads of tons of coal hidden away behind the 
flap of the Nootka’s tent; he grew keen and flashing 
of eye when he spoke of the future; and then he 
became mild and reminiscent as he passed lightly over 
that experience with Abner Gilvert, along the trail 
from the Chitina to Valdez. 

Pellinger, he could be quite certain, was pleased, 
for the man fondled the samples; he studied the anal¬ 
ysis which Harne placed before him; and then he, too, 
spoke at some length about the fortunes, the endless 
millions, to be made off there in the North by far¬ 
sighted men. 

“If you can but bring the coal out,” he said; and 
Harne laughed in a boyish way. 

Was he not an engineer, and had he not made that 
problem of a railway one of his studies in the valley 
of the Chitina? 


BLACK GOLD 


114 

“Then you mean you will back me?” Harne put 
the question directly, as he saw the vitality in Pel- 
linger’s frame grow tense once more. 

The man’s moist hand went out impulsively. 

“If everything is as you have said, I will back you 
to the limit,” he said solemnly. “Now, if you will 
leave me your location papers, and some little details 
such as that, the responsibility may rest upon my 
shoulders for the time being. You are an engineer; 

I am a business man.” 

That was quite right, just as he had pictured it- 
through those three long years in the North; and now, 
as his grip grew firmer upon that moist hand within 
his, the older man spoke again. 

“I think,” said Pellinger, musingly, “that there is 
someone at the house who has been waiting . . . 
and waiting, for you.” 

Harne did not attempt to answer that; for there 
were no words which seemed to fit the occasion. He 
rose and left the office quickly; and as he went, Pel¬ 
linger was smiling. 

Some would have called it happiness. 


CHAPTER XIV 
DOOLITTLE MOVES 


Swedevaris Pellinger looked across the table at 
Ramsey Doolittle, and smiled; and Doolittle was not 
the type of man at whom another would smile, unless 
there were some motive behind it, or some compulsion. 

“Break a man and think nothing of it,” Pellinger 
was saying to himself, even through that smile. 
“Worse than his father ever was. . . .” 

And that, in itself, was a startling tribute to the 
financial piracy of Ramsey Doolittle; for Peter Doo¬ 
little, in the old days, had been one of the most feared 
men on the market. He was a man who neither asked 
nor gave quarter, and he broke enemies as others 
would break playthings. He had reveled in it; and 
he had passed along his millions, his knowledge and 
his unscrupulousness to his son; so Swedevaris Pel¬ 
linger sat there and smiled. 

There were men, he was reflecting, who had sought 
to dislodge Doolittle from his point of prestige; but 
those years on the sunny side of forty are dangerous 
things, particularly when a man has for their bulwark 
all the millions and all the coldness which was Ramsey 
Doolittle’s. So there were men whose commercial 


n6 


BLACK GOLD 


monuments had marked the death of all hope, whose 
daring had served but as fodder for the machine which 
was turned by the hands of piracy. 

“So Harne called on you this morning ?” Doolittle 
was saying, as his cold fingers drummed in monoto¬ 
nous manner upon the polished surface of the desk 
before him. “What did he want?” 

There were few men from whom Pellinger would 
have accepted that curtness without revolt; but there 
before him was Doolittle. So he answered without 
subterfuge. 

“I am to finance him in those northern coal areas. 
You know all about that,” his manner was partly an 
apology, where with other men he would have main¬ 
tained a cold reserve. “The possibilities are amazing, 
and Harne is young and filled with it.” 

Doolittle laughed, harshly, decisively. 

“Exactly,” he agreed. “But the point is ... do 
you want to get in on it?” 

Pellinger shifted uneasily in his chair, and his eyes 
wandered away. There were many words which he 
might have used; but in some way or other, Doolittle’s 
manner discouraged all things but direct thought. 

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

Again Doolittle laughed. 

“Surely you are not weakening in your old age, 
Swede,” he said, “I mean that I have control of the 
situation up there. I ?.m offering you a chance.” 

There was a period of silence, through which the 
only sounds which reached them were the manifold 


DOOLITTLE MOVES 


ii 7 

murmurings of the great city, a city as cold, as cruel 
and as heartless as this man before him. 

“You mean Gilvert?” Pellinger asked, at length: 
and the other nodded, as though that were sufficient 
knowledge for any man of judgment. 

“Harne told me something about that,” Pellinger 
went on, almost aimlessly. “Suspects Gilvert, in a sort 
of way, but is quite certain now of his claims.” 

“The only certain thing in life is death,” Doolittle’s 
voice was as unemotional as that throbbing of the city’s 
life, “so Harne happens to be mistaken; that is all. 
The best of us slip at times; and Harne is not among 
the best. But, Swede, I have a soft spot in my heart 
for you; though it may be weakness. I am not going 
to break you because you planned to pick that person 
Harne out of the gutter. You are, instead, coming 
in; with me.” 

In that moment, Swedevaris Pellinger regretted the 
years which had crept over him. If only he had the 
youth and the vigor of this man before him! But 
no; he lacked those things which bring steel to a 
man’s arm, and courage and daring to his brain. 
And he had spoken the truth when he talked to 
Harne about the weariness of battle. So he sighed, 
restlessly. 

“What about Harne ?” he asked. 

“Harne? Oh, we will give him some sort of an 
engineer’s job, if he doesn’t growl too much. . . . 
Now, that is settled; I will let you know later how 
much you are to put into the syndicate.” 


n8 


BLACK GOLD 


“Syndicate ?” Pellinger spoke listlessly, “that is 
illegal. . . 

“Illegal?” Doolittle broke in. “What has that to do 
with it. You are getting old, and childish.” 

Ramsey Doolittle pressed a button; a signal that 
Pellinger, the great, might pass from the presence of 
one still greater. At the doorway, Doolittle’s voice 
reached him again. 

“You will not, of course, whisper a word of it to 
Harne. Let Youth taste life while it may.” 

This time it was Swedevaris Pellinger who laughed, 
with bitterness in the notes; but that bitterness brought 
a smile to the lips of Doolittle, a smile which was all 
joy of conquest. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE PHANTOM WHICH CAME 
BETWEEN 

Harne drew the portiere aside, and there, before 
him, stood the woman who had waited for three 
years. 

In that moment, he found himself thinking that he 
would have preferred to meet Edith Pellinger under 
the broad arch of the northern skies, in the shadows 
of the lofty hills, beside the rippling streams, or in 
any place of the North which did not bear remotely 
the stamp of correctness of this gilded cage. 

Yet the woman was standing there, with quickening 
pulse and brightening eye; and a bewitching color was 
stealing into the oval of her glowing cheeks. Here 
was, beyond doubt, the glimmer of a jewel, a jewel 
in a beautiful case; and now as she saw the great 
eagerness in the eyes of Rupert Harne, she stepped 
towards him. Men countless times had talked to her 
of love; but never yet had man looked upon her as 
this man was looking now, with a consuming flame. 
It was an unforgettable message which dwarfed the 
weak, prosaic loves of those others whom she had 
known through the years; and now, before her, was 
119 


120 


BLACK GOLD 


a man cruder than they, but beyond doubt the symbol 
of struggle and victory. 

So she stepped towards him again, even while he 
stood beneath the swaying curtains. 

“I have waited for you, Rupert Harne!” 

“You have waited for me?” The voice was thrill¬ 
ing, “You have waited. You have never doubted that 
I would succeed?” 

Words were futile in this moment, particularly those 
parrot-like ones which he had chosen to bridge the 
gap of time; yet the only thing which really mattered 
was the fact that Edith Pellinger was standing there 
and that the doorway to the past was held open before 
him. So, in that instant, while he stood with the 
massive curtains swaying about him, and peered down 
through the corridors of the past, a feeling of awe 
came upon him. 

Three years, and she, Edith Pellinger, daughter of 
a maker and breaker of men; she, glittering now in 
her own splendor, had waited for him, barbarian that 
he was! 

A true daughter of Swedevaris Pellinger, cold like 
a diamond, warm like a jewel, with youth and the 
appeal of romance still in her heart, with life and its 
calm reality before her. Coldly calm and capable of 
measuring life and its prizes; and of measuring, as 
well, the warmer flames of being. 

So awe was in the heart of Rupert Harne; for, 
looking now upon Edith Pellinger, upon the soft and 
rounded lines of her oval cheeks, upon the arch of 


THE PHANTOM BETWEEN 


121 


her high-born brows, and into the depths of eyes which 
reached out and held him, there was a message which 
flashed out to fan with its cold breath the first flames 
of his ardor. 

Luxury all about her, in the silken folds of gar¬ 
ments which clung to her fondly, in the spacious set¬ 
ting of the age-old dignity and beauty of the room 
which held her; luxury in the single jewel at her 
throat, even in the whiteness of her hands. 

Yes, luxury in the softness and the whiteness of 
her hands. 

This one room alone which held her, with its mas¬ 
sive hangings, its sombre furnishings, its gloomy old 
air of wealth and mystery, solemn and dusky except 
for the flash of light which fell upon Edith Pellinger. 

. . . Yes, it was true; this room alone held more of 
the world’s scale of goods than he, Rupert Harne, 
could muster with his whole means. 

One massive room of many, with the girl stand¬ 
ing there, eyes warm with memories, eyes which 
looked dimly into the past and measured the Rupert 
Harne of old with the man who stood before her. 
Yes, eyes warm with memories. Eyes which were 
shining from the blue in their depths; but which at 
other times could shade into the cold of grey. Lips 
parted, invitingly; and the quick rising and falling 
of the silken folds which covered the breasts. 

She had waited for him; she, Edith Pellinger, the 
daughter of luxury. . . . And that single jewel at 
her throat, how it gleamed like a sombre eye! That 


122 


BLACK GOLD 


alone would have staggered his modest means; and the 
paintings upon the walls, luxurious old works of art 
which in their day had burned out the hearts of long- 
dead masters! 

It was absurd, impossible, except that she loved 
him; and that rising and falling of the silken folds of 
her gown. 

Three years; and he had won, here, as in the North. 

Though why she should have waited for him, 
Rupert Harne, barbarian, when all about her had been 
the fire and the youth of other luxury! 

There was Ramsey Doolittle, king even more than 
Swedevaris Pellinger was king; there were others, 
like the long procession of a pageant, waiting but to 
bow the knee in worship, to Edith Pellinger or to 
the cage which housed her; and yet those eyes, blue 
now—with all the cold of their grey lost in the warm 
waves of emotion—were speaking to him their 
invitation. 

“Yes, Rupert, I have waited/’ she said, “I think I 
would have missed one of the finest moments of my 
life if I had not. And you, Rupert Harne?” 

He could step closer now; and he wondered at the 
deep pile of the rug which felt like crushed moss be¬ 
neath his feet. That was a whisper from the north, 
a tiny whispering voice which touched his fancy for 
a moment and transplanted this girl from the gilded 
cage of luxury into that unbarred cage of giant spaces 
of hills and sky. For an instant only he thought of 
her there, then the cold blast of reason whipped him 


THE PHANTOM BETWEEN 123 

back to the present; and a little tremor crept through 
his veins. 

Some of the awe was gone; for that first flitting 
vision of Edith Pellinger beyond her cage had shown 
her but as a human being, helpless when the bands of 
luxury were stripped from about her. So he came 
closer, and the soft, white hands met his own. Del¬ 
icate things; pink at the tips, like velvet, fragile 
things which would crush in the grip of his north- 
hardened hands. Yet they answered the pressure of 
his fingers like a nearby and startling echo. 

“And you, Rupert Harne?” she said. 

He could breathe now, more sanely; and he felt that 
his voice no longer had wings. 

“That is less a question than an answer,” he cried 
out, while those warm fingers still clung to his own. 
“It tells me that you really have waited; though when I 
think of myself and of you, and of all the luxury of 
your life and the hardships of mine, it is almost more 
than I can believe. It tells me that I am going to 
ask you soon to say that you love me. But I will 
not ask you to say the words now, no, not yet. That 
would not be fair to you. There are so many things 
of which I must speak, changes, perhaps, which have 
come into my life. . . . Though you, girl, have 
not changed.” 

She laughed, with her eyes and her lips; and the 
jewel glimmered at her throat, a jewel which would 
cost, probably, the half of his whole wealth. And 
even those solemn paintings upon the wall seemed hap- 


124 


BLACK GOLD 


pier, as though, perhaps, their creators had once lived 
like this, drinking the wine of life. 

“You could not change, Rupert,” she whispered, 
as she led him to a divan which sank beneath his 
weight like a bed of leaves and dead moss. “You 
could not; you are not like that.” 

“I hope not,” he laughed just as gladly as she, 
and suddenly he found that the awe and the whole 
mystery of it had fled, “but I must tell you of my life 
of the past three years. And when you have heard 
of all that, and have seen if I have really changed; 
when you have seen what the North has done to me, 
then I will ask you to speak the words which mean 
more to me than life itself. I will not let you speak 
them now; I will treasure them, hold them as a prize 
before the future . . 

Harne broke off, but the flash of their eyes finished 
that message. 

She was just like the Edith Pellinger of old, cold 
to others with the aloofness of dignity, warm to him 
with a warmth which made him think of some rare 
and costly flower; and now she was smiling as of old. 

“Very well, Sir Knight, you may tell me all, every 
little thing. I see he is just bursting to get it off 
his mind; and the Pellinger girl is going to drink in 
every word of it. Now—start.” 

She was curled up there, almost like a kitten at his 
side, with the soft depths of the divan about her, 
with a little wisp of her hair creeping over her fore- 


THE PHANTOM BETWEEN 125 

head; and with a shaft of light which fell upon them 
from above. 

Though the awe had left him, it really was a mys¬ 
tery in the end. Why had they, those gilded and 
ungilded youths, who stood aside like a patient proces¬ 
sional, not stormed this palace of Swedevaris Pel- 
linger? Stormed it and seized this jewel at its heart. 

/So, in many words which stole the hours away, 
Harne talked of his life in the North. He talked of 
the months of struggle, of fruitless quest, of long, end¬ 
less rivers which broke into swift rapids, of the green 
gliding of their ceaseless currents, of the solemn hills 
which raised their blackened heads to the sky or bowed 
beneath the burden of their snows; he spoke of the gla¬ 
cial torrents, the swift crashing of their treachery, 
the icy fingers of their rivers; he told of the summer 
days, glad with the crispness of life and the beauty 
of flowers; he spoke of the winters, crushing with 
their bands of steel, and greedy for the cold bodies 
of men; he told of the mountains and the broad arch 
of sky, the tortured pine and the eager flowers be¬ 
neath one’s feet; he spoke of the North in all its swift 
whimsical moods, the North, with its terror, its glad¬ 
ness, its hardness, its smiles, its incomprehensible 
weaving of all the pangs and passions of mankind. 
He spoke of all things; yet not of all things. Of all 
things but one. 

No, this was not the time to tell the story of 
Marcile. 


126 


BLACK GOLD 


‘‘So, after all, you will be one of our moneyed set,” 
the girl laughed, and her snuggling was like that of a 
kitten, a kitten with claws. “I am rather glad of that; 
for while this has been good sport, the waiting, I 
mean, the set have been poking fun at me. They 
call me ‘Love-in-a-cottage.’ But now that part of it 
is over and I don’t need to think about it again. You 
are back, Rupert, back for good. You have found 
your mine. That opens the door to our set, though 
you know I held it wide open before. Now, to make 
up for lost time.” 

“Still, you would feel the same way about it, if all 
my promised wealth were as dead sand and your 
father’s face against me?” 

There was a little kittenish twisting upon the divan, 
a little laugh, and the faintest bearing of the claws. 

“Yes, Rupert, of course, though that can never be.” 

A sigh slipped from the man’s lips, as he turned 
towards this flower at his side. 

“Now you may say it,” he whispered. “You must 
say it. You must tell me that you have waited be¬ 
cause you could not do anything else if you were to 
have happiness.” 

There was an answer in the girl’s eyes; yet she did 
not speak. For a moment, Harne felt that she did 
not need to speak. For the face, upturned towards 
his, seemed so like a rare and exotic flower that he 
caught his breath swiftly. Even in that moment he 
told himself with exaltation that he had never yet 
known failure; so he gazed back into the eager face 


THE PHANTOM BETWEEN 


127 

of Edith Pellinger, searching for that which might 
lie hidden beneath the truth. 

She leaned closer; and his arm was about her shoul¬ 
der. A heavy arm, clumsy and trembling. An arm 
which might have crushed her; yet she nestled against 
it, warm and confiding. So he looked into her eyes, 
searching for the uttermost truth; and as he looked, 
something seemed to slip from him. 

He could still see the lips, the cheeks, the eyes of 
the girl all thrilling; he could sense the closeness of 
the frail young body. Her parted lips were an in¬ 
vitation, a command. Her voiceless confession of 
love was dying away like the strains of ineffable 
music; yet he remained passive, with the heavy arm 
across the white and slim shoulders. The message of 
love, unspoken, flashed from eyes as blue now as 
the depth of the sea, was vanishing, like thinning 
music. 

With it, in tormenting madness, was fleeing his own 
ardor. 

He suddenly felt cold, human, unresponsive. He 
was practical. The arm no longer trembled as it lay 
across the white shoulders; it felt only the warmth of 
physical impact. And that jewel at her throat, 
dimmed now like an eye in sorrow. 

All the deep pang had left him, with torturing 
fickleness. Edith Pellinger had become as any other 
human being staring upon him in an ardent way. The 
transition was there; it came about so quickly that 
Harne still looked without emotion into the blazing 


128 


BLACK GOLD 


eyes, wondering at that uplifted pleading, fearing to 
tear himself from her; yet before he could turn away, 
some external essence gripped him in a bond mightier 
than the magnetism of the girl who nestled in his 
arms. 

What it was he could not say. It seemed rather 
a haunting memory, something unplaceable, yet out of 
the immediate past. 

It stole into his body like a foreign spirit into the 
shrine of the dead. It pleaded for recognition; it 
dominated him, yet it came from far distant. Gradu¬ 
ally, as Harne looked, a change seemed to come over 
Edith Pellinger’s face. It was not that the outward 
flame grew less intense; it was rather the features 
themselves were changing before him like the figures 
in a dream. Harne knew that it must be unreal; he 
knew that they did not really change, but so strong 
was this new spell upon him that he yielded to its 
sway. 

As he looked, his thoughts suddenly fled far away. 
Those blue, upturned eyes grew brown and deep and 
wistful. The face grew rounder, the cheeks browned 
with little points of red, the dark hair seemed to take 
on the lustrous sheen of ripened corn-silk; and all the 
time the parted lips were drawing closer to his own. 
This transition was something which the man was too 
dreamy to understand; yet when the eyes, now brown, 
grew pathetic, a wonderful light sprang up in his own 
eyes, and in one swift, impulsive gesture he pressed 


THE PHANTOM BETWEEN 129 

his lips to those which had so dumbly asked for his 
caress. 

In that contact the spell was broken. Beyond the 
face of Edith Pellinger he saw the fleeting brain- 
picture of the little brown-faced girl who had come 
to him so stealthily and gone again. 

“God! What have I done?” he exclaimed, as he 
took the girl by the shoulders and thrust her from 
him. 

He was staring again, almost rudely; and the fea¬ 
tures were clearly those of Edith Pellinger. 

“Our betrothal,” the girl answered, whispering. 
“What moves you so, Rupert?” 

The man’s hands fell limply to his side. 

“It must be that I was too happy,” he said, dazedly, 
“I will go now.” 

He made his way from the room, feeling in this 
instant that he no longer knew himself. 

And there, in the hallway below, smiling and coldly 
confident, was a man he had seen before. Ramsey 
Doolittle, typical product of the money marts, con¬ 
tent less with the world than with himself, but sleek 
with all the arts of civilization. Neither young nor 
old, yet with the grasping of the two ages met in 
one; and smiling in a way which masked all emotion. 

“How flattering to see that I am recognized,” he 
greeted Harne. “And that makes it so much easier to 
say that the truce is ended.” 

That was Doolittle as he had always been; stripping 


130 


BLACK GOLD 


aside all but the brazen essentials, and speaking as 
one who knew his fellowmen. 

“One cannot accuse you of wasting time, ,, Harne 
replied. 

“After years of impatience ?” the man laughed 
shortly. “My dear Harne, what else could you expect ? 
Yet honor is a thing which must be respected; and 
that is why I come to you with terms, as one who 
can afford to be generous.” 

“You interest me.” 

“I was quite certain I would; yet on such a field 
as this, men do not bandy words.” 

“Then perhaps I should have said that your terms 
would interest me.” 

Doolittle’s glance roved for a moment only, to the 
stairway which Harne had so recently descended. 
Then he nodded quickly. 

“Yes, it concerns her,” he said. “My terms are . . . 
the woman or your mine.” 

There were endless things in that, almost the key of 
life itself; and as there came to Harne once more the 
memory of the phantom of the brown-eyed Marcile, 
a smile touched his lips. It would be so simple to 
choose, were there but his shattered love alone. 

“And if I choose both?” he asked. 

Doolittle’s expression did not change; and in that 
instant Harne could not but think of him as a man 
who had never known defeat. 

“I presumed I was speaking to a reasonable man,” 
Doolittle went on, quite without emotion. “I have 


THE PHANTOM BETWEEN 


I3i 

offered you wealth or a woman. Sometimes I wonder 
why I should offer you either; for that is not Doolittle’s 
way. But perhaps it is because there is but one ambi¬ 
tion in this world which I have not yet attained.” 

“How you must love her!” 

“I do, in my own way. Except for that, do you 
think I would ever have respected the truce?” 

The question carried its own answer, for nothing 
short of the violence of suppressed emotion could ever 
have held the flag of honor sacred before the deeds 
of Ramsey Doolittle. And now he was offering terms, 
through some strange whim of fairness; terms to 
which there could be but the one answer. 

Were it emotion alone which must rule, then it 
must be a different answer; but there were two men 
who could play the game of honor. 

“And if I choose both?” Harne repeated; and this 
time Doolittle studied him more carefully, as though 
for the first time he came to feel that Harne could 
be capable of such a thing of folly. 

“And I repeat that I presumed you were a reason¬ 
able man,” he returned, more slowly. “On the one 
hand, if you choose the woman, I will break you; and 
that is what you will have to offer to her, the shreds 
of a broken life. I do not want your mine; I have 
wealth now more than enough. But I do want Edith 
Pellinger; and yet I am giving you the choice. Edith 
Pellinger and a broken life; or wealth ... I offered 
it, I think, because there is only one thing which a 
sensible man would do.” 


i 3 2 


BLACK GOLD 


“I wonder ?” Harne asked, as his glance roved for 
a moment only, and as the caress of the girl’s lips 
upon his came back like a touch of fire. Warm lips 
which had found his warm only for another. 

“You have chosen?” 

Harne nodded. 

“You take the mine, and the wealth it will bring?” 

“I choose both. The mine and the woman.” 

Ramsey Doolittle did not answer; yet his glance 
remained firm for a moment, emotionless as before; 
then he bowed with the politeness of a courtier, and 
he stepped through the doorway to the grey stone steps 
which were the cold portal to the Pellinger mansion. 


CHAPTER XVI 


BONDAGE 

That was the Ramsey Doolittle whom Harne came 
to know that winter; coldly polite and distantly 
smiling. 

And that was the Edith Pellinger whom he came 
to know more clearly; clinging, with her love burning 
about him. 

And between was the shadow of Marcile, and of 
honor. 

There were times when he felt that the shadow of 
the North was leaving him; yet its memory lingered, 
like the odor of dead flowers which are forever stir¬ 
ring up old dreams, or old sorrows. 

There were times when he was caught in the swirl 
of the life of Edith Pellinger, when the smile of 
Ramsey Doolittle was like a bait to his courage, and 
when, through the mad race of the present, he was 
able to blot out all visions of the past or of the future. 

There were times when he believed that Edith’s 
life might be his, when he believed that the shadow 
of a hectic existence might take the place of deepest 
emotion, and when he thought to find in the love of 
Edith Pellinger the missing road to happiness. 

133 


134 


BLACK GOLD 


Then winter fled and spring touched the air, and 
in that there was some faint whisper of the far-off 
tang of the quickening North. 

And there was the memory of the work and the 
hopes he had left in the new land. The hopes of 
old; and the hopes of springtime. And a new one 
which came to him now. He would take Edith Pel- 
linger into the North; and perhaps, when she had 
learned to love the life he loved, he would love her 
through the things she loved. 

So he went to her in the little mansion; and he 
found her at the piano, with her fingers running along 
the keys in quick little rushes like the patter of hail. 
She was like that, sparkling, quickening for the mo¬ 
ment; but that was all. 

There was music sublime, if only she could be made 
to understand; and perhaps, in teaching her to know 
the music of the silent hills, he would find the secret 
pathway which ran through the valleys of love. 

Looking upon her now, he knew that the girl was 
beautiful, with a beauty enhanced by the soft shadings 
of light; he knew that to the eye of man she was desir¬ 
able; but just now she was the orchid set amid trop¬ 
ical verdure. 

Yes, he would take her from this, back to the prim¬ 
itive, where the tinsel would be shed and the fever 
would be driven from days no longer meaningless. 

With the hope of the future upon him, Harne 
stepped across the room, and the music hung fire. A 
hand reached across her shoulder and drew his hand 


BONDAGE 


135 


down with a caress; and some of the thrill of the new 
hope which was his stole through and found answer 
there. 

"Rupert,” she whispered, "you are different to¬ 
night. What is it?” 

Different! God in Heaven! If only he could be 
different, different enough to answer her love! 

"Different? Yes. And will I tell it to you, all in 
one stroke?” 

The quickening clasp of her hand was the answer; 
and when Harne leaned closer, he could not but won¬ 
der at his own coldness. 

"It is this,” he said, "we must go from here, you 
and I. We must go out beneath the broad sky where 
life is life. I have tried this life, Edith, and it is 
breaking me. I cannot endure it for all time; and 
now you must come to me, you must see my life, you 
must love it. It is broad and big and kindly; it is 
full of glad days and nights, and music; and life, of 
which this is but the shell. . . 

All this and much more did Harne pour forth in a 
torrent of pleading which left Edith for a time in a 
daze of gladness. Then through the eagerness of his 
words there stole a note of hardness; for the passion 
which urged him on was love of the North, and not 
love of the girl at his side. 

Something of that must have found its way through 
the tone of his words; for beneath his touch he felt 
the shivering of her flesh. 

"You mean you want me to give up this life?” she 


136 


BLACK GOLD 


asked, as some of the gladness died out of her eyes. 

“Give it up, yes. For something greater and big¬ 
ger. You will find it strange, even lonely, at first; 
but in the broad North one learns to take a calmer 
view of life, to care less for the frivolities of the 
city/ 1 

“Yet frivolities are the only things I know,” there 
was rebuke in that, though her fingers still clung to 
his. “I cannot leave them behind. But I might try, 
for your sake,' Rupert, if there were any need. But 
there is no need. You do not need ever to go into the 
North again. Tell me, Rupert, that you will not go; 
for I am a little afraid of Ramsey Doolittle. He is 
so cold and smiling all the time; and watching us. So 
you must not leave me, Rupert. You know that I 
cannot let you go.” 

“Can you see no reason why I must?” Harne asked, 
in slow wonder. “My work. Have you forgotten 
that?” 

“Work?” Edith Pellinger laughed and shook the 
passing mood of sentiment from her. “You poor dear. 
And so it talks of work. I know of a certain rich 
Mr. Pellinger who would give him several millions 
for his mine; but he wants to work. Well, well, I 
suppose we will have to get a nice mahogany desk 
for him in the Pellinger office.” 

For a time Harne was silent, while the girl’s hand 
was warm against his. And his felt cold, colder now 
than the North. 


BONDAGE 


137 


“I mean my work,” he said, more clearly. “See, 
Edith, every man must live for something outside 
himself. And up there, in the developing of that 
mine, someone will some day do a great work for the 
world. I want to be the man who does it. I cannot 
sit in your father’s office while somebody else is work¬ 
ing the mine, my mine. I cannot accept millions 
merely because of our relations. . . 

“Nonsense, Rupert. You are too old-fashioned. 
Your ideals are a generation too old. Work may look 
bright; but it is really the wealth which counts. No, 
Rupert, you must give up such ideas. You must not 
leave me . . . ever . . 

There was emotion in the girl’s voice, but she looked 
into his face with smiles shining through the remnants 
of her fears. After all, with the soft lights throwing 
a haze about her, how fascinating this woman was, 
how desirable! What a wonderful flower she seemed, 
just waiting for the hand of man. For the hand of 
this one man. To him she was an invitation. She 
was pleading. She was offering her lips. She was 
throwing out her arms as one spreads them wide to 
offer comfort to a weary child. There was intimacy 
in her manner, there was the pride of possession in her 
eyes; there was yielding, there was the plea of the 
weak who seeks to lean upon the strong; there was the 
cry of love trembling upon her lips, there was gladness 
shining through the mists in her eyes. 

“Come, promise me,” she whispered ever so softly. 


138 


BLACK GOLD 


“Promise, like a good boy, that you will not leave me, 
ever, that we will go on and on through life 
together. . . 

God, what a temptation to throw the world and all 
its ambitions into the discard of life! The woman 
before him was fascinating; at other times she had 
been bewildering. She was the symbol of luxury, the 
tinsel and the glitter, and all those things of possession 
for which the mad multitudes of the world are for¬ 
ever striving; she was holding out to him with both 
arms the prize of wealth for which others had sold 
body and soul, the prize for which the countless 
thousands had stooped to crime and slaughter; she 
was pleading that he take it, and with it take her . . . 
and yet . . . The power of her fascination had 
slipped from him. 

For a moment only did he feel the temptation to 
step into the girl’s arms and cast from him ambition 
and all things else. Then there was that cold, prac¬ 
tical side which rose up to take possession of him, 
which told him that he had failed to win the woman 
to his way of thinking, which told him at the same 
time that he was bound to her, bound by the troth 
of his lips, but most of all by the manner in which 
Edith Pellinger still clung to him. It was bondage, 
from which he had no thought of shrinking, bondage 
which was holding him down, hampering his way, 
yet . . . 

The girl’s arms dropped to her sides, listlessly. 

“Then, if you cannot promise, you must not refuse,” 


BONDAGE 


139 


she added, slowly, “for they want you to-night, my 
father and Ramsey Doolittle. Then, when you have 
heard from them, come back to me. You will prom¬ 
ise me that, at least. . . 

“Yes, I will come back,” he agreed, “no matter 
what they may have to say to me.” 

The girl rose, took him by the arm, and thrust him 
gently through the doorway out into the broad hall¬ 
way which led downward to the den of Swedevaris 
Pellinger. 


CHAPTER XVII 


JHE ULTIMATUM 

The mansion was Swedevaris Pellinger’s, and the 
room, and everything therein, from the deep-piled 
carpet to the last luxurious picture upon the walls; 
everything, that is, except his own soul. 

For the pose of dominance was Ramsey Doolittle’s; 
and Harne was conscious of that as he met the eyes, 
coldly smiling and watchful, and as he turned aside 
to face Pellinger. 

The latter was seated before a table gleaming with 
its richness, his hands were outspread upon the sur¬ 
face, and between them was a document which lay 
there with legal seals upon it. 

There was something vaguely alarming in the whole 
scene, more perhaps in the attitude of Pellinger than 
in the dominance of Doolittle. For Pellinger’s pose 
was that of the driven slave, and though it was he 
who motioned Harne to a chair, there was back of 
even that small gesture the feeling that it was Doolittle 
who had willed it. 

And when he spoke it was almost as though he 
but echoed the thoughts of the silent man at his side. 

140 


THE ULTIMATUM 


141 

And Doolittle, with eyes smiling and watchful, sat 
motionless. 

“We may as well come to the point,” Pellinger’s 
gaze was slightly averted. “We brought you here, 
Harne, because we are making an offer for your 
mine.” 

Pellinger fingered the legal document, and he 
glanced towards Doolittle; but there was no help in 
that watchful gaze. 

“We are making you an offer,” he repeated, in a 
tone cold and formal, “and under the circumstances 
we consider that it is particularly generous. The 
documents are prepared, if you care to sign them 
now.” 

There was a finality about it which might have been 
amusing, except for the silent control of the man 
Doolittle. 

“Haste, of course, is the watchword of the age,” 
Harne returned, “but would it be impertinent for me 
to ask the price?” 

“The price,” said Pellinger, in a voice slightly 
thicker and colder, “is one dollar.” 

Harne’s glance came then to rest upon the twin¬ 
kling eyes of Ramsey Doolittle. They were, beyond 
doubt, coldly smiling as before, except for one little 
flash of triumph which burned for an instant, then 
fled. That, together with the dominant pose of the 
man, and the slave-driven attitude of Swedevaris 
Pellinger, told the full story. The whole scene was 
but a display of power. And that offer of one dollar? 


142 


BLACK GOLD 


“Your generosity is overpowering/’ Harne spoke 
to Doolittle. “This, I presume, is but the firing of the 
first gun after the breaking of the truce.” 

Then Doolittle spoke for the first time, and his 
voice was calm and stripped of all emotion. 

“My dear fellow, you quite misunderstand me,” he 
protested. “This has nothing whatever to do with our 
other affair. It is purely a business proposition with 
me. Circumstances happen to have shown me how 
to get possession of an extremely valuable mine; and, 
well, I am merely human.” 

Doolittle rose, as though his part of the scene were 
finished. He bowed, crossed to the doorway, then 
paused. 

“You can deliver the documents to me to-morrow, 
Pellinger,” he said as he passed into the hallway 
beyond. 

“An amusing devil,” Harne remarked, as the door 
closed behind him; then instantly the situation stepped 
over the borderland, into the dramas of life. 

For the attitude of Swedevaris Pellinger had not 
changed; he was still the slave with his shackles. 

“It is obvious,” Harne continued, “that Doolittle 
has one of us licked . . . And it isn’t Rupert Harne.” 

“There is a difference between being licked, and 
showing judgment,” Pellinger spoke as though years 
had suddenly clung about him. “Come, Harne, you 
had better take this offer. I will add a half million 
or so of my own, just to help you out. You are a 
good sort, Harne, and I don’t want to see you stripped. 


THE ULTIMATUM 


143 


And if I can hand this signed document over to Doo¬ 
little for the price of one dollar, I think things will 
still come out all right.” 

Things might still come out all right! 

Hame watched the nervous shuffling of the older 
hands; he listened to the rustling of the document; 
and when Pellinger’s eyes strayed from his, just a 
trifle, there was a sudden feeling of panic which 
reached him. 

Pellinger had been on his side; and yet now he was 
willing to sell for a dollar. 

“What’s happened?” Harne demanded. 

“Doolittle disputes your claims.” 

From the tone of the words, it was almost as 
though Pellinger had said that death must come to all. 
To Pellinger, the thing in itself seemed complete. 
Doolittle disputed the claims, so the battle was ended, 
and they must sell for a dollar. 

That was the main part of the story. The details 
were that Abner Gilvert was a Doolittle man, had been 
from the first; and now he had re-located the claims, 
with the power of Ramsey Doolittle behind him. 

The minutes dragged away while Rupert Harne sat 
in the luxury-strewn room of Swedevaris Pellinger 
and watched the man’s nervous fingers. No, Pellinger 
could not fight Doolittle, regardless of where his sen¬ 
timents might lie; for Doolittle was too cold and pow¬ 
erful, too far-seeing for that. All winter he had been 
working calmly and quietly, until now, in the spring, 
he had Pellinger at his mercy upon the markets. Yes, 


144 


BLACK GOLD 


this scene was but a display of the man’s power; and 
he was ruthless. There was but the one way out which 
Pellinger could see. Sell for a dollar; and then he, 
Pellinger, would see that there were some returns. 
Say a half million, or perhaps more. Then Harne 
could go to some other part of the world and start 
afresh. And Edith? No, he was doing this for the 
sake of Edith. It would be better for her in the end 
if Harne were a weakling. It might help to break 
her faith. 

Yes, there would be a future for him. For if he 
chose, Pellinger would invest a half-million for him 
in the syndicate. 

What syndicate? 

Syndicate? Well, perhaps he should not' have used 
the term; but there was the spirit of it, and not the 
name. For it was the name only which was illegal. 
But things happened that way. Not that Doolittle 
needed the finances of others to help him through; but 
there were times when it was well to have others 
within his power. 

But Harne need not worry about that. Some such 
thing would be certain to happen here, law or no law; 
and he, Pellinger, would slip in a half million for 
Harne. 

“So be a good fellow, and sign here. I am doing 
it for your sake. It is the only way to save you from 
being crushed. You will, of course, go away quietly 
and I will explain to Edith.” 

Harne rose slowly, took the document from Pel- 


THE ULTIMATUM 


145 

linger’s fingers and tore it into shreds, moving calmly 
and without passion. 

“That,” he said, “is my answer.” 

He crossed to the door; then paused, as had 
Doolittle. 

“You may tell Mr. Doolittle for me that he is going 
to learn the meaning of a fight, money or no money, 
and as for you ... I am astonished, Swedevaris 
Pellinger. Heavens, man, but I thought you liked 
a fight. No, never mind explaining; I think I see it 
all. This scene could never have happened to-night 
if Doolittle did not have you in his power. You are 
really on my side, though you do not know it. And 
now, do you refuse me your house? I mean, does it 
prejudice you in Doolittle’s eyes?” 

“No. No. He does not use his money against me 
to force her hand. And that is the fairest thing I 
ever knew Ramsey Doolittle to do. It was of you 
only I was thinking.” 

Harne smiled suddenly, quite youthfully; and a look 
of admiration came into the eyes of Swedevaris 
Pellinger. 

“Then you may still regard me as the unsold,” said 
Harne as he swung open the door, “and if I were 
not polite I would say, ‘Syndicate be damned.’ ” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE BEGINNING OF BATTLE 

Garry accepted the news much as Harne had hoped, 
his chief concern being to know just how soon they 
were to raise the necessary funds to carry on the pre¬ 
liminaries of war. A hurried examination of their 
financial status revealed the fact that their reserves 
were all too slender, but with money-kings in plenty 
constantly peering about them in search for such 
alchemists as Harne and Garry must be in the end, 
the problem should really be but little more than one 
of selection. 

So an early afternoon found Harne in the office of 
Mr. Kenneth Jordan whose merest frown could stir up 
a tremor all through a series of offices occupying three 
flats of a mammoth building on financial row. Mr. 
Jordan, it developed, would be glad to cancel another 
appointment for the mild pleasure of gazing upon the 
man who had touched new hopes in the Chitina. He 
was much interested in the North, believed in its 
development, and believed particularly in coal lands. 
Was a hobby of Mr. Jordan’s, as a matter of fact. 

Harne entered the big man’s office with a confidence 
which must have reflected itself upon his countenance, 
146 


THE BEGINNING OF BATTLE 147 

for Jordan, the finance-king, rose from his seat and 
met him half way across the room. 

“I may say, Mr. Harne, ,, Jordan remarked, as soon 
as the preliminary greetings were over, “that I am 
particularly interested in coal claims. I have watched 
all reports from the North and am quite convinced 
that some day there will be a wonderful business in 
coal carried on along the western coast, from Alaska 
south. When you came east last fall, I took the 
trouble to hear your story, second-hand, of course, 
and I have had a sort of lingering memory of the Chit- 
ina Valley ever since. You see, I am absolutely frank 
about it. Now what can I do for you?” 

To Harne, the situation seemed too placid to be true. 

“There is not much you can do for me,” Harne 
laughed, “except show your confidence in the North 
by backing me and my mine to the extent of about 
fifty millions.” 

Jordan whistled softly to himself. 

“Another young man with big ideas!” he reflected. 
“It is what the country needs. Fifty millions, of 
course, is a tidy little sum, even for me. We do not 
sow it broadcast, you understand. But I presume you 
were merely speaking in general terms.” 

Harne nodded his agreement. 

“It might be more, or it might be less,” he sug¬ 
gested, “I was merely implying that I want somebody 
who will back me to the limit, to any limit.” 

“Venturesome, eh? But you know one does not 
invest an amount like fifty millions without taking 


148 


BLACK GOLD 


many precautions. Still, you have come to the right 
place, young man. I doubted all along that Pellinger 
would be able to finance you. He never was a 
plunger, and it has been a mystery to me . . . but 
excuse me, I was forgetting. I will just call in one 
of my experts right away and have him look into 
things; but I think you will find that we are with you. 
I seem to remember hearing that the claims are dis¬ 
puted. Anything serious? But I don’t suppose there 
is, for it appears to be the regular thing for somebody 
to come along and dispute anybody’s right to any¬ 
thing which matters. At any rate, we have a legal 
department quite expert in such matters.” 

“The claims are disputed,” Harne replied. “I am 
sorry I cannot tell you the grounds, for I do not 
know. But I can tell you this ... I made a careful 
study of the entry regulations before I went North 
three years ago. I have gone over the regulations 
since, and I cannot find a single flaw in my entries. 
I am also an experienced surveyor; I know the busi¬ 
ness, and I went over the locations so many times 
that there could not possibly be a mistake. I know 
the coal is there, that I got the claims first and regis¬ 
tered them first, and Mr. Jordan, I do not want to 
boast, but I do not think there is a man alive who 
is going to get those claims from me, by fair means 
or foul. . . ” 

Harne’s voice and manner conveyed their own 
enthusiasm, and it was plain that Jordan was im- 


THE BEGINNING OF BATTLE 


149 


pressed; but at this moment there was an interruption 
in the form of an immaculate secretary who came 
and stood deferentially at Mr. Jordan’s side. 

Jordan glanced up impatiently. 

“I thought you understood, Claxton,” he said, “that 
Mr. Harne and myself were not to be interrupted.” 

“But this seems to be different,” the secretary de¬ 
ferred. “It is Mr. Doolittle on the telephone, and he 
says it is very important, more important to you than 
to him.” 

“Very well, Claxton, switch him on.” 

While the receiver was placed to the financier’s 
ear, Harne studied the man’s countenance. So far 
as the finance-king was concerned, it was a listening 
part, with no words to betray Doolittle’s purpose. 
But Jordan’s face was enough. For as Harne 
watched, he could see a touch of surprise, then a 
wave of anger; and when he hung up the receiver 
there was regret plainly stamped upon the man’s 
countenance. 

“I am afraid your boast came a little too soon, Mr. 
Harne,” Jordan resumed, in a much less cordial tone. 
“I have just been listening to Mr. Ramsey Doolittle, 
and he informs me that he is going to get those 
claims. Why didn’t you tell me in the first place that 
it was Doolittle who was disputing them? It might 
have saved my time as well as yours.” 

“Surely you are not letting Doolittle frighten you 
off,” Harne returned, slightly impatient “What dif- 


BLACK GOLD 


150 

ference does it make who disputes my claims ? I have 
them just the same. They are mine, properly regis¬ 
tered, and I am going to hold them.” 

“It makes a lot of difference, for Doolittle has in¬ 
formed me that already he considers the claims his. 
He is so sure of it that he is sending a party of sur¬ 
veyors north from Seattle at the end of this week. 
He adds that you haven’t the faintest chance of hold¬ 
ing the claims, as you committed a flagrant breach of 
mining laws when locating them. He admits that you 
were there first; but since you cannot hold the property, 
and since Doolittle is so confident, I think there is no 
use of us wasting any more time, Mr. Harne. I regret 
it; but Doolittle is something of a power. He makes 
few mistakes. And having learned that once, to my 
cost, I have decided that it is too much of a luxury 
for me to fight Doolittle in a matter like this.” 

Jordan rose to indicate that the interview was over, 
and Harne, rising in turn, found it quite impossible 
to hide his disappointment. 

“I am sorry, young fellow, but such is life,” Jordan 
added, as he accompanied Harne to the door. “But 
if, by one chance in a hundred, Doolittle is mistaken, 
and you win out, come back to me, and there will be 
no lack of funds.” 

“Something like asking me to save the plum, and 
then to share it,” Harne replied, as he once more 
gained control of his emotions. “But that at least is 
something to be thankful for.” 

“Perhaps, but it is the best I can do,” Jordan re- 


THE BEGINNING OF BATTLE 151 

turned formally, with so much finality in his tones 
that Harne appreciated that the first score had been 
checked up to the credit of Ramsey Doolittle. 

That was the beginning of battle, and judging 
from externals it was to be the end. 

At first it had appeared to be mere chance which 
had timed Doolittle’s telephone conversation for the 
fateful moment, but the events of the following 
weeks shattered such a theory as that. It was not 
chance, unless chance were like a man’s own shadow; 
and for that, Hartley Garry had a far more acceptable 
word. Spies, said Garry, watching their every move. 
And spies it must be, for every fresh move which 
Harne made was but a fresh move to be countered, 
until in the end he came to know that every castle he 
built must be prepared to withstand the test of Ramsey 
Doolittle’s strength. 

He made many calls upon such men as Jordan, 
carefully timed calls. He approached financiers from 
many angles; he studied their weaknesses and their 
moods. He chose Doolittle’s enemies and offered to 
place in their hands the weapons of battle; he chose 
the man’s friends and appealed to them upon the 
simple ground of the lust of wealth; he chose the 
sporting kings of finance and offered them odds in 
the greatest gamble the world has known; but one 
and all he saw weaken before the secret influence of 
Ramsey Doolittle. 

Then when the night was darkest and the dawn 
still seemed afar, a message reached him. It was de- 


BLACK GOLD 


152 

livered with caution, and a little outward fear, and 
it whispered that perhaps, if he would call upon Mr. 
Timothy Burton, of Burton & Laxton, and would 
use more than ordinary discretion in his mode of 
arrival, he might find a little ray of light in the 
distance. 

So Harne called at the hour appointed, and he 
found Burton a small man with a steely glint in his 
eyes, but openly nervous. 

"Shouldn’t have done this,” he rebuked himself, 
"but dash my little bones if I don’t hate that man 
Doolittle. Have heard of what’s going on. The 
talk of the street; and I says to myself, ‘Damn Doo¬ 
little. He hooked me once, and here’s the come back.’ 
So I sent for you, Harne. Can’t plunge with the 
millions, but we all know the hole you’re in, with 
court actions coming on. See you through that, if 
it’s any good to you. Fifty thousand or so, and noth¬ 
ing said about it.” 

Harne reached across the desk, and his hand met 
the outstretched hand of the little man before him. 
Fifty thousand at a time like this would be like the 
sprinkling of manna, and Mr. Burton, he assured, 
would never have cause for regret. 

"Let’s hope so,” the man overcame his nervousness 
in the zeal of the cause. "Let you have it for half a 
year. In that time you should find somebody with 
nerve enough to fight Doolittle, which I wish to God 
I had. Makes me feel like a coward. Securities, 
pure formality. Got to have something to show for 


THE BEGINNING OF BATTLE 


*53 


my folly. All right, give me first mortgages on your 
claims, redeemable in six months. And damn 
Doolittle.” 

There was such fervor in the words that Harne 
caught the fresh fever of battle; and with a deal com¬ 
pleted and the check in his pocket, he felt a sudden 
overflowing of warmth for the little man. Part of 
it he expressed, but the rest went unsaid, for Burton 
rose suddenly and ushered him to the door. 

“Can’t stand kind words. Make me weep. Now 
go to it, and clean up on the big octopus.” 

Burton stood in the doorway and watched him go, 
and when Harne’s figure had disappeared he turned 
back to his room, closed the door and stood with 
his back against it. 

A man stepped from the adjoining room and stared 
at him, coldly smiling. 

“Hello, octopus,” Burton greeted. 

“Got him?” said Ramsey Doolittle, with a cold nod. 

“Got him,” Burton echoed, and his steely eyes were 
more steely still, “What next?” 

“Nothing much. Just feed the court actions to him 
with reasonable speed. He will win them, of course, 
but the more he wins the faster goes the fifty thou¬ 
sand; and at the end of the half year, when it is all 
gone . . . Really, Burton, you are almost amusing. 
You fancied it would not go over.” 

And Ramsey Doolittle laughed, which was a rare 
thing in his days, good or bad. 


CHAPTER XIX 


BONDAGE UNBROKEN 

In view of the windfall which had come their way, 
Harne and Garry agreed that the time of action had 
arrived. Harne, as the moving spirit, must continue 
his search for big finance, in the Middle West rather 
than in the East, while Garry would return to the 
North. With Garry there would be an engineer, 
Silent Tom Harlow by name, a university associate 
of Harne’s who had managed to catch a big vision of 
the future, and to whom the name of Doolittle meant 
nothing but opportunity. 

The only link which held Harne now to the East 
was Edith Pellinger, daughter of the cold old money- 
king who feared to fight on his side in the war with 
Ramsey Doolittle. 

So he went to the girl, and she met him impulsively, 
under shaded lights, with the old clinging in her man¬ 
ner and her voice. 

She had charms ; any man must know that, charms 
magnetic over the lives of other men; but there was 
something in the North stronger in the heart of 
Rupert Harne; and as he met her there, with the 
soft lights about her, it seemed that a strange whim 
i54 


BONDAGE UNBROKEN 


155 


had come upon her. It was almost as though she 
had heard the far-off echo of that challenging voice 
of the North, and as though for the first time in her 
life she was beginning to fight to hold the love of a 
man. 

She grew more confiding, almost like the vine 
which clings. 

“I did not tell you, Rupert, but I heard all, that 
night/’ her voice was barely more than a whisper, “the 
night you defied them both and refused to sell me for 
that mine of yours. And, Rupert, you were wonder¬ 
ful. You were just what I would want a man of 
mine to be. It may not have been right, but I could 
not help listening that night, for when you left me 
I felt that the future was a great, big, wonderful thing, 
and that you were as big as the future itself. And 
now I am glad I did it. I am glad I know you love 
me more than you love the thought of wealth or of 
anything else in the whole world; and I will never 
forget. I will love you all the more, till the 
end. . . 

For a time Harne did not hear what the girl was 
saying, for his heart was cold, and beyond the allure¬ 
ments he fancied he could see the finger of vanity. 
After all, Edith Pellinger wanted love as a flower 
demands the worship of sunshine. He knew, as she 
clung to him, that she whispered much more of this 
old-time folly; but though her embrace was warm upon 
his breast and her full lips were seeking his own, he 
could not feel the answering kindle of emotion. It 


BLACK GOLD 


156 

was not right to meet her thus, while she fought the 
call of the North for him; yet it was not his will that 
the fires of emotion should die in the moment of 
crisis. Had his will been subject to reason, he would 
have reached out and taken her in his arms, he would 
have fanned the dying tinders of desire until they 
leaped into glowing flame; and he would not have 
flinched when the woman reached out at last and drew 
him closer in swift embrace. 

“You do not need to go from me at all,” she cried, 
in tones to meet the challenge of the far-off North. 
“Do as they ask. Do as my father asks. It is the 
easier way, and I do not like struggle. Join them. 
Let us all be friends. You have proven yourself, and 
I do not ask more.” 

“But they have threatened to crush me!” he ex¬ 
claimed, forgetful for the moment that this was her 
battle. 

“Then take what they will give you. Better that 
than nothing, for they will crush you in the end, if 
it pleases them. Oh, don’t I know? Haven’t I seen 
others crushed before you . . . ?” 

Harne’s hands dropped to his sides listlessly. 

Again she was clinging to him; and again her lips 
were inviting. Though her eyes told a little of her 
story of defeat. 

“Then Rupert, you must never forget me. You 
must kiss me again as you did that night . . . that 
wonderful night ... !” 

That, at least, was her due. 


BONDAGE UNBROKEN 


157 


Slowly, firmly, Harne fought to drive up from 
his heart a flickering ember of his old-time desire; 
yet when his lips touched hers they were cold and 
passionless. 

Sharply she drew back, and the answer lay in her 
eyes. But it was not rebuke; it was rather the quick 
gripping of that out-flung challenge of the northland. 
For again she put her hands upon his shoulders and 
held him from her at the full length of her arms. 

“I do not know what it is, Rupert,” she said softly, 
with the trembling of emotion in her voice, “but I have 
a feeling that there is something strange off there in 
the North, drawing you, taking you from me, and I 
cannot let you go ... No, I cannot let you 
go ... I think ... I do not know what it is . . . 
But I have made up my mind, almost in this moment, 
that I am going up there, to try to understand what 
it is.” 

It was then that the slow fire which had deserted 
him in his moment of need began to stir in the veins 
of Rupert Harne. 

“You are going ... to try ... to understand?” 
he asked slowly, measuring the words and their swift 
uprooting of the whole future. “You, Edith, will try 
to understand me, and the North?” 

“Yes, you dear boy, of course. I will go just as 
soon as I can get father to take me. . . .” 

This time he caught her in his arms with swift 
emotion, and with some of the flame of the old-time 
fire, and when he found the thin red line of her lips 


BLACK GOLD 


iS8 

there was a warmth in his caress such as she had 
known before. There was a consciousness, as well, 
of the way to victory, and that was in the far slopes 
of the North. 

“Yes, I will go,” she whispered, “and you will 
wait for me, Rupert. You will wait, and help me to 
understand ?” 

Thongs about him; but not like the iron chains he 
had known but a few short hours ago. 

He looked into her face, and her manner was eager, 
her eyes deep and pleading. Wait for her? It was, 
perhaps, the only hope of happiness which life could 
bring to him now. 

/So Garry and Harlow left for the North, while 
Harne remained behind, with the thongs about him. 


CHAPTER XX 


THE MYSTERY GIRL APPEARS 

It may be that somewhere in the world there are 
winds more kindly than those which lave the upper 
Pacific; there may be a more wonderful panorama of 
island-dotted seas and forest-clad hills than that which 
cheers the eyes of the voyageur along the channels of 
the Pacific from the Canadian ports north. 

There may be more gentle balm than the kiss of the 
Pacific winds as they steal across the broad leagues 
of ocean and carry with them some of the mysterious 
and lingering odors of the far-off Orient. There may 
be gladder sunshine than that which leaps down from 
a steep sky and falls upon the world like jewels of 
light; there may be something more glad, more free, 
in the universe, than an open spring day upon the 
idle Pacific; but if so, Hartley Garry had not yet 
found it. 

He had found the West a tonic after the hectic 
frivolity of the East; he had looked upon Vancouver 
and found it smiling there on the hillside, laughing up 
at its arching hills like a child from the cradle; he 
had felt the city’s mystery, its remoteness, its age-old 
linking of the customs of the old and the new; and 
i59 


i6o 


BLACK GOLD 


when he thought of it, standing there as the gateway 
beween two nations and two worlds, there had come to 
him the picture of glad Youth upon the hillsides, 
which looks into the distance with strange visions 
which it does not fully comprehend. 

Perhaps it was that which made him more subject 
to the whim of Tom Harlow when the latter did that 
which in him was the unexpected. For they were 
sitting side by side in the sunshine of the deck, and 
they were watching an idle coast drift by, when Harlow 
drew his attention to a girl upon the windward side. 
She was sitting, with a coat thrown loosely about 
her, and though her eyes were closed, Garry had a 
feeling that she was not sleeping. For there was 
something too deliberate in her pose, just as there had 
been yesterday, and the day before. 

“Any reason why she should be interested in you?” 
Harlow asked, “I don’t pretend to know much about 
the habits of your westerners.” 

“Or you ?” Garry laughed. “Or why presume, just 
because the girl happens to like the same part of the 
deck ?” 

“Reasonable, I would say, in nine cases out of ten; 
but this strikes me like the tenth case. There is a 
sort of watchdog air about her.” 

“So you have noticed that too,” Garry became more 
serious. “I hadn’t quite cared to put it into words.” 

“The first thing you should do with a real idea is 
put it into words,” Harlow advised. “Then you have 
a chance to look at it and tear it to bits. But she 


THE MYSTERY GIRL APPEARS 161 


doesn’t appear to be entirely accustomed to the duties 
of a watchdog. That was the thing which struck me 
first.” 

“Oh!” said Garry, “you think it isn’t your natural 
beauty ?” 

“That might attract mosquitoes, but not girls of 
this type.” 

“Striking, to say the least,” Garry sized up his ear¬ 
lier impressions, “and yet she doesn’t appear like the 
type who would hold a fellow up for the price of a 
meal.” 

“That is the second reason I am wondering. When 
a girl of obvious good-breeding departs from the rut, 
there is a motive.” 

“What has she done?” Garry demanded, with the 
faintest suggestion of feeling, which betrayed the fact 
that his earlier observations of the girl had not been 
entirely impersonal. 

“She hasn’t done anything she was not perfectly 
entitled to do . . . yet, these are unusual times for 
you. So when I saw a pretty girl looking us up in the 
booking records in the steamship office back in Seattle, 
I admit it was not all flattery that made me keep my 
eyes open. She bought her ticket, I observed, after 
she looked us up in the records.” 

“A coincidence . . . perhaps,” Garry muttered. 
“Just the same, I would like to know who she is, and 
what.” 

“She is a Miss Elise Apperson. You will have to 
find out the rest for yourself.” 


BLACK GOLD 


162 

“You learned her name?” Garry exclaimed. “You 
must be something of a fake after all.” 

“No. But I have always believed that one streak 
of curiosity deserves another. She looked us up at the 
booking office. I looked her up on the purser’s records, 
and that is the name under which she sails, Miss 
Apperson of Seattle. The rest is up to you, if there 
is to be any rest. You can drop the idea as absurd, 
or . . .” 

“Yes, that’s just the point,” Garry muttered, as he 
began to study the profile of the girl whose actions 
had been sufficiently unusual to draw the attention of 
the coldly-calculating Tom Harlow. 

But he scarcely needed this additional observation 
to remind him that Elise Apperson, whatever else she 
might be, was more than usually attractive. He had 
noticed her a number of times while promenading about 
the decks, and he had told himself more than once that 
she made a remarkable picture of what Marcile would 
have been, had Marcile been cradled by the civilization 
of the South rather than by the semi-barbarity of the 
Nootkas. It was not that the features were the same, 
though there was the same mass of dark hair which 
threw back little fascinating points of light when the 
sun shone upon it; there was the same clean perfection 
in the lines of her features, the same dark tinge to the 
eyes and the brows; and there was the same independ¬ 
ent yet inquiring poise to her whole lithe figure. Ex¬ 
cept for these generalities, there was no resemblance be¬ 
tween Miss Apperson and Marcile. The former would 


THE MYSTERY GIRL APPEARS 163 

be slightly taller; she reflected the polish and the cult¬ 
ure of the world and its experience; she was strikingly 
handsome, just as Marcile would be, with the same 
culture; but now that Harlow had mentioned it, it did 
seem to Garry, in spite of all the girl’s evident good¬ 
breeding and upbringing, in spite of her contact with 
the world which had made her manifestly able to take 
care of herself, that in some manner or other she was 
out of her element, that she was not entirely satisfied 
with the present. Whether that could have any con¬ 
nection with her curiosity as to their destination, Garry 
did not like to guess. To be more definite, he could 
not even say for certain that there really was restless¬ 
ness in the girl’s manner, though there was something 
which touched his curiosity. When he reflected more 
carefully, he decided that perhaps the girl did have 
the air of hovering over them, but that might be ex¬ 
plained simply by the fact that they happened to choose 
her favorite corners about the steamer, and promenaded 
at her favorite hours. 

As he studied her now, with the width of the deck 
between them, Garry could not keep himself from lik¬ 
ing the way in which the sun-touched black of her 
hair was picked up and fluttered about her face by 
the sudden gusts of wind. He liked the smoothness 
and clearness of her profile; he liked the careful mod¬ 
esty she displayed in her dress; he liked that faint sug¬ 
gestion of independence and self-reliance which was so 
plainly a part of her bearing; and he liked even more 
that still fainter and more indefinable something in 


164 


BLACK GOLD 


her manner which seemed to carry with it the vaguest 
of hints that she was performing some duty with which 
she was not entirely in sympathy. So he told himself 
that if Harlow were right, if the girl really was watch¬ 
ing them, then she was not doing it through any wish 
of her own. 

As Garry studied the girl, he began to ponder all 
those old tricks of youth. Shortly he appreciated that 
he might have saved himself the trouble of planning 
any subtlety of attack, for he abruptly became conscious 
that the girl was pondering the same tricks of youth 
as was he himself. The discovery told him that, what¬ 
ever might be her motives, she was at least too inex¬ 
perienced to hide her lack of practice. 

As the youth continued to watch, he found that Elise 
Apperson was obliged to resort to the oldest and crudest 
of plans, the only touch of originality she displayed 
being her choice of a position on the deck where the 
wind played into her hands. In time, as he watched, 
Garry knew that the girl knew, yet he did not take his 
eyes away. He saw a handkerchief fall from her lap 
and scuttle across the deck at the command of the wind ; 
but Garry, with a strange humor which had gripped 
him, merely put out his foot and trapped the fugitive. 
Then, as he watched again, it was plain that Elise 
Apperson was determined to make his, or Harlow's, 
acquaintance, for now she appeared to doze over her 
magazine, and as she dozed a filmy cloud of something 
loosened gradually from about her neck and in time 
followed the handkerchief across the deck. The girl 


THE MYSTERY GIRL APPEARS 165 


seemed to waken with a start, and the glance which she 
directed after the fugitive wrap did not carry with 
it any human invitation. 

“Just fairly well done,” Harlow muttered critically, 
as Garry rose to return the girl’s possessions. 

As he passed them to her, Garry noticed a smile 
in the girl’s brown eyes, but what pleased him most 
of all was a certain shamed reluctance in her manner. 

“Frightfully windy,” he remarked casually. “Will 
you permit me to remove your chair to a sheltered 
corner ?” 

Elise Apperson permitted the courtesy, but she did 
not hurry its fulfilment, so that by the time the work 
was over, Garry’s natural fertility of brain had dis¬ 
covered further excuse for remaining; and by the time 
he had found her a steamer rug and had made every¬ 
thing comfortable again, the facts themselves seemed 
to warrant him staying. Besides, there was no real 
discouragement in the girl’s eyes. 

“You are traveling alone, Miss Apperson?” Garry 
asked, to make conversation. 

“So you know my name?” the girl avoided a direct 
reply, and there was some astonishment in her voice. 
“But I suppose you know the names of everybody on 
board. Some people are like that. They have a won¬ 
derful faculty for learning things. Now, take that 
elderly stout lady in the bow of the boat. You might 
tell me who she is, and all about her, the size of her 
family, why she is going north ...” 

“I am afraid you misjudge me,” Garry interrupted, 


BLACK GOLD 


166 

“I am not that kind at all; and I must plead guilty to 
playing favorites.” 

“O—h!” Elise Apperson exclaimed with a little 
gasp of wonder and a puzzled frown came to her 
eyes. 

The frown was an impersonal thing, not meant for 
Garry; and he could see that the girl had not shown 
the least pleasure at the compliment he had paid her. 
From that, it appeared evident that she was accustomed 
to compliments; yet, as the minutes slipped away and 
as their conversation broadened, it also seemed evident 
that Tom Harlow had been right in his estimate of the 
girl. 

To Garry, as he talked in a detached way, watching 
her manner more than her words, it seemed that Elise 
Apperson was more than restless. At times he fancied 
she was positively panicky, and that only by effort was 
she holding herself to some task against which some 
portion of her judgment must have rebelled. 

At length, as Garry did his utmost to restore her 
ease, it seemed that she lost some of her fear for the 
future, some of her doubt for the wisdom of the step 
she was taking, and that therefore she was benefiting 
by his presence. In the end, it was plain to Garry 
that he had been instrumental in helping her to arrive 
at some decision of importance, for her manner became 
more positive and that shadow of restlessness left her; 
and when he suggested that she meet Harlow before 
returning to her stateroom, she did not object. 

“Miss Apperson is going through to Valdez,” Garry 


THE MYSTERY GIRL APPEARS 167 

rounded out the introduction, “and she may possibly 
stop off at Sitka on the way.” 

Harlow acknowledged the girl’s bow with a trifle 
more than silence, but that was all; and when she 
turned away and hurried down the deck, he was gaz¬ 
ing after her. 

“She stops off at Sitka if we do, and she goes 
right through if we do. Is that what you mean, 
Hart?” he asked. 

“I fancy you are right,” Garry returned grudgingly. 

“I don’t want to cross-question you, but if you hap¬ 
pen to learn at any time that she actually is on our 
trail, you might tell me.” 

“But what object could Doolittle have in putting 
anybody on our trail, particularly up here in the North 
where Abner Gilvert has his gang of tools and all the 
rest of it?” Garry demanded. 

“That is what I would like to know,” Harlow re¬ 
turned, as he looked at the problem without finding 
the answer. 

“We could try a little trickery,” Garry ventured. 
“Have our baggage sent off the boat at Sitka, and then 
put it on again at the last minute.” 

In that instant Garry came to understand for the 
first time the significance of Harlow’s praenomen, for 
the slow, curious smile of the man’s eyes was all the 
answer that one could need. 

“Of course it wouldn’t be fair,” Garry hastened to 
add, “but if it wasn’t a woman, we could try out a 
trick like that.” 


BLACK GOLD 


168 

“And since she is a woman, we can at least play 
fair,” Harlow decided. “If she has to earn a living in 
this manner, then it is our duty to make conditions 
as pleasant as possible for her.” 

“Nice philosophy,” Garry agreed, “and if you have 
no objections I will try to put it into effect.” 

Harlow had no objections to that, so Garry followed 
his own suggestion so scrupulously that by the time 
they slipped around the rocky headland which blocked 
the racing of the waves upon Valdez, he was on fair 
terms with Miss Apperson, and Harlow was far from 
being a stranger. There was, as well, in Garry’s sen¬ 
timents, something more than his earlier curiosity, 
though he had not as yet attempted to put that 
into actual words. The nearest he came to it was a 
consciousness of real anxiety lest she should be the 
tool picked by Ramsey Doolittle to spy upon them in 
the northland. Yet upon reaching Valdez it was plain 
that she was friendless. There were no greetings for 
her at the dock; and in the background was Abner 
Gilvert. The latter was watching them coldly, cyni¬ 
cally. Garry saw Miss Apperson glance once in the 
direction of Gilvert, but though their eyes seemed to 
meet, there was no outward recognition between them. 

“If you have no friends here, it is best to go di¬ 
rectly to the Golden Arms until you can find other 
accommodation,” he suggested; and the girl had become 
tractable, as strangers nearly always are in a strange 
land. 


THE MYSTERY GIRL APPEARS 169 


She had not recognized Gilvert. And that was a 
pleasing thing, until Garry remembered abruptly that 
such recognition would have been folly on the face 
of it. 


CHAPTER XXI 


A CHANGED PARKS 

With the mask torn from his conduct by the deeds 
of the East, Gilvert no longer made pretence. Rather, 
he was inclined to be showy, as though he must 
impress upon Garry and Harlow the fact that he was 
the power of the North who must be respected, and 
perhaps feared. He had a party of men lounging 
about the docks, while others were putting the finish¬ 
ing touches to the packing of a half dozen kayaks 
which lay in the water, ready for the Chitina. 

There was, in Gilvert’s manner, that type of ar¬ 
rogance which seeks an outlet somewhere, and it was 
reflected in the disciplined manner in which his men 
worked. 

In charge of the kayak party there was a flame-like 
head which in some way or other seemed familiar to 
Garry; but for a time he gave little more than super¬ 
ficial attention to any of Gilvert’s men or to their 
preparations, for the unloading of his own equipment 
and supplies was the proceeding which mattered most. 
The huge crane dipped into the hold of the vessel, 
and when it came forth again, the most of Garry’s 
worldly wealth lay upon the dock of Valdez. 

170 


A CHANGED PARKS 


171 

“Hey, Red, come and see what we got in our midst,” 
Gilvert’s voice called; and when the flame-tipped fore¬ 
man turned about, Garry knew where he had seen that 
form before. 

The red one knew, as well, for he grinned, without 
enthusiasm. 

“Sure enough, it’s the Cordova gold hound,” Garry 
exclaimed. “How's our old friend, the Red Rover; 
and did he have to stick any hot pokers to Gilvert’s feet 
to get a job as foreman?” 

The point was too obscure for the Red Rover, so 
he controlled his grins and looked curiously at Abner 
Gilvert. 

“The fact is, Mr. Red Rover, or whatever your 
name is, you have a rather bad reputation in this part 
of the country, and I have good authority for that in 
the person of Ab Gilvert. So if he ever gets nasty, 
Red, all you got to do is threaten to stick hot pokers 
to his feet; for he’s a bit squeamish about hot pokers.” 

The red-topped one, who was red-cheeked and red- 
whiskered as well, had a pair of eyes founded upon 
intelligence, and he nodded his head sharply, as though 
to say there was an interesting point somewhere, if 
he could but put his mind upon it. He was, it ap¬ 
peared, inclined to follow up the matter and discover 
its bearing upon life, when Gilvert turned the subject 
abruptly. 

“Going North?” he demanded of Garry, while the 
silent Harlow looked on. “And that, I suppose, is 
your expert?” 


172 


BLACK GOLD 


“You appear to be well informed. The gentleman 
you are looking at is Tom Harlow, the best half back 
Yale ever had; he is two-fisted and can shoot the eyes 
out of bumble-bees. . . . But I was forgetting; that 
hasn’t anything to do with the point. You guessed 
it when you said we might be thinking of going North. 
Leastways, we might like to take a look at the Chitina, 
the Red Rover permitting.” 

The mockery in that touched the newly-established 
arrogance in Gilvert’s manner; so he flared in anger. 

“Don’t get impertinent, my young friend,” he spoke 
sharply, “You talk lightly about the Chitina, but I’m 
telling you and Harlow that things have changed. It 
isn’t always healthy up that way now, for there’s a 
new disease broke out.” 

“May I be permitted to name it?” Garry laughed, 
“and call it greeditis?” 

“That ain’t it,” Gilvert had better control upon his 
anger, “it’s more like lead poisoning. It sort of hits 
a person like a chunk of lead, and it depends on where 
it hits how serious it is. If I were you fellows, 
I wouldn’t take chances.” 

Garry’s youth showed in his laughter, and some of 
his lightness of heart. 

“You see, Tom,” he exclaimed, “I’ve been telling 
you all along that we had a good friend in Ab Gilvert, 
in spite of the things we’ve been hearing about him 
from the East. Now, there isn’t anybody but a friend 
who’d warn a person against a thing like that; and 
yet you stand there, Tom, saying that we got to keep 


A CHANGED PARKS 


i 73 


our eyes on Abbey. Pm ashamed of you. You 
haven’t even thanked him; and I bet you’d stand there 
while he told you it was a disease which spreads fast 
and which is more apt to hit big parties than little ones. 
You see, Tom, there’s more to hit in a big party. 
Why don’t you thank the gentlemen?” 

Harlow grinned, while two red points came into 
Gilvert’s cheek; and the Red Rover turned away with 
a guffaw. Shortly, it was obvious, he was telling the 
workmen about the threatened outbreak of lead¬ 
poisoning. 

Later, Gilvert’s attitude changed; for while Garry 
was storing his equipment in the dockage sheds he 
found occasion to re-open the unfriendly relations. 

‘‘You’d better pack kit and hike back on the next 
boat,” Gilvert advised, and Garry paused in his labors 
to study the man’s countenance. 

“You look bright, Ab, now that you have had a 
shave,” he replied. “That was one thing I didn’t like 
about you up in the Chitina; you forgot to use palm- 
olive ; but I suppose it was only a part of the role you 
had to play? Do you mind telling me if you found it 
very hard to pretend to be a gentleman ?” 

Gilvert’s face darkened with a rush of blood, and 
though his fingers snapped at his side he brought him¬ 
self under control. 

“I’m telling you this for your own good,” he in¬ 
sisted, “I happen to have a bad gang of men with 
me. . . . 

“Happen?” Garry caught up the word. “I know 


174 


BLACK GOLD 


just what you mean, Ab. You told Doolittle that 
you wanted a Sunday School class from the Quaker 
belt, and he went and sent you a gang from the 
Bowery. I can imagine how badly you must be feel¬ 
ing about it; and I wouldn’t think of adding to your 
suffering by having you repeat the story. And the 
Red Rover. He is such a kindly-disposed soul; it 
does seem a pity to have him exposed to such 
environment. ...” 

Gilvert turned away with a flare of anger, crossed 
the dock, then crossed it again. 

“Have it your own way,” he spoke, with obvious 
control. “Run your head into your own noose, but 
you won’t get into the Chitina.” 

“That is more definite,” Garry dropped his frivolity, 
“but there must be reasons.” 

“Two of them. I can’t control my men; and there 
is no way for you to get there. I saw to that. 
Stripped out all the boatmen, except Beaubien, and 
Frangois is a little more crazy than you are. If you 
want to see how little there is left of him above the 
eyes, you’d better look him up at the Ocean House.” 

Garry considered the matter, but he did not answer. 

“And another thing,” Gilvert paused long enough 
to let a little triumph control his anger, “there’s 
only one way to get coal out of the Chitina Valley; 
that’s by rail. And I’ve got you tied up tighter’n a 
drum.” 

“Cheerful, isn’t he?” Harlow remarked, as Gil¬ 
vert strode away. “Is he bluffing?” 


A CHANGED PARKS 


175 

“Too crooked to need to bluff,” Garry decided, 
“so the quicker we look into things, the better.’’ 

They looked; and a few hours later even Harlow 
was ready to admit that Gilvert had placed many check¬ 
mates all about them. The only cheerful thing, so 
far as they could judge, was the lack of communication 
between Gilvert and Miss Apperson before the former 
went North. 

As to boatmen, Gilvert was right. 

The sole remaining individual with any repute in 
that line was Frangois Beaubien, a wild-eyed, shaggy- 
haired person who frequented the saloons, and who, 
rumor had it, was constantly seeking to drown some 
secret sorrow. What the sorrow was, rumor did not 
say; and at first sight, Garry suspected him of being 
a poseur whom Gilvert was attempting to place in their 
party. 

Yet Beaubien flamed with anger at the first mention 
of Gilvert, and it was so voice-choking as to seem 
sincere. At first, he had no thought of work; but 
when Garry inferred that they were none too friendly 
with Gilvert, the attitude of the French-Canadian 
changed swiftly. He was willing even to forget his 
besetting sin. 

“Cut heem out ? Oui. Moi, I go now on le grande 
search, to find . . . Oui . . . But no matter . . . 
Beaubien, the boatman, is not Beaubien, the drunkard. 
Away up yonder in the North I forget; but here in 
Valdez . . . mais non ... It is the drink. ...” 

So Beaubien became head boatman, with instructions 


BLACK GOLD 


176 

to find enough men to handle two kayaks; and he was 
still searching when Harlow suggested a counter blow 
at the Doolittle-Gilvert forces. 

“They have blocked Harne’s railway by locating 
across the only right of way along the Copper,” he 
reflected aloud. “Perhaps they have picked a half 
dozen strategic points; so, what do we do, Hart?” 

Harlow’s voice was promising, but even that failed 
to bring light to Garry’s pondering brain. 

“Well?” he demanded. 

“An eye for an eye,” Harlow quoted. “Block the 
harbor front, of course. Three of us, you, myself 
and Beaubien; that makes six hundred and forty 
acres; and we will pay for it flat this time, cash down, 
no more claim locating; temporarily we will become 
agriculturists, making fertilizer out of rock. ...” 

Garry’s hat went into the air, and citizens at some 
little distance were attracted by the youth’s strange 
behavior. 

“. . . and with six hundred and forty acres, spread 
out in a narrow strip, we could throw a band around 
the whole town,” Harlow went on soberly. “But that 
will hardly be necessary. I think it will be enough to 
make Doolittle dump his coal a half mile from the 
water front and shoot it the rest of the way with 
cannon if he ever wants to get it to the South.” 

“Provided, of course, he trims us in the North.” 

“That will be his first problem,” Harlow nodded. 
“After that, if we are insane enough to take up land 


A CHANGED PARKS 


177 

as rock-agriculturists, and pay for it, cash down, how 
can he ever make us disgorge it?” 

Again Garry’s hat paid the price of the idea; and 
from that time on he moved about Valdez with vigor. 

One of the first essentials of that activity was a 
trip to the land office, for it seemed proper to discover 
whether or not Gilvert had merely imagined that block¬ 
ing of the right of way, and if, by chance, he had fore¬ 
stalled them at the water front. 

Yet, intent as he was upon that purpose, Garry’s 
first glimpse of the physical Parks left him staring 
with astonishment. 

The manifestation was apparent the moment Garry 
stepped inside the shack which had formerly done 
dual duty as store and land office; for there was no 
longer a dejected Parks hanging over the counter. 
There was, instead, an angular youth with an air about 
him, who jerked a thumb laconically across one 
shoulder and remarked: 

“Boss in the next room.” 

“The “Boss,” materialized, was the hitherto shifty- 
eyed Parks; but the revolution in his appearance was 
like a new incarnation. He was now as a flower trans¬ 
ported to fields far from its birth, and the cigar which 
angled from his lips was tilted at the proper degree to 
advertise affluence. 

A Persian rug aided in this impression of magic¬ 
trifling, as did an oak-glittering desk and a swivel 
chair, while a pair of pictures upon the wall, and a 


i 7 8 


BLACK GOLD 


safe in one corner, did nothing whatever in the way 
of lessening Garry’s wonder. 

“Oh, it’s you!” Garry exclaimed, then stared at the 
general scheme of things. “Do you mind twisting 
about a bit to see if I have stepped into the wrong 
den? . . . No, I haven’t. It’s Parks, the old stone in 
a new setting. But you amaze me.” 

“Indeed!” said Parks, with a flick of the cigar which 
could not entirely conceal his appreciation. 

Park’s sole occupation in this strange new den of his 
seemed to be to balance upon the pivot of his chair, and, 
with feet properly poised upon one edge of the polished 
oak, direct the ash of his cigar towards a receptacle 
upon the floor. That, likewise, was new. 

“Oh, Aladdin, Aladdin, why hast thou deserted 
me?” 

Garry sat down weakly in a leather cushioned chair 
which Parks indicated with a careless twist of the 
little finger. 

“Something seems to surprise you,” the land agent 
remarked. 

“It is admiration, my dear Parks, as Hamlet might 
have said,” Garry hastened to explain, “though when 
you see me looking about the room, I am merely search¬ 
ing for the secret elevator to success.” 

Parks, being totally untrained in resisting emotions, 
permitted a faint grin to come to his Tips. 

“You rather like things?” he asked, forgetting to 
flick the cigar ash towards its receptacle. 

“So might a beggar before the court of kings,” 


A CHANGED PARKS 


179 


Garry met the grin half way. “Harne and I were 
fully convinced as to the value of coal claims in this 
district, but we never looked for such waving of the 
magic wand. Excuse my inquisitiveness, Parks, but 
I am wondering why you sold.” 

The cigar resumed its duty, and Parks’ back took 
on a trifle more of the stiffness of dignity. 

“Who says I sold?” he demanded. 

“For one thing, that Persian rug confesses it; and 
there are a dozen other confessions about you, Parks. 
You are about as dense as a pane of glass; but what I 
am now considering is the reason you failed to go 
south instead of bringing some of the south to 
you. . . .” 

Parks’ eyes grew narrow and shifty once more, and 
he began to gyrate upon that glimmering office chair, 
to conceal from himself the fact that an inquisitive 
person was seated just a few feet away. 

“. . . It’s strange,” Garry resumed, “you sell out, 
for a tidy little sum, and there is no use denying your 
own confessions that it was tidy. But instead of do¬ 
ing what any normal human being would have done 
after years in the north, you still shun the bright 
lights and the fleshpots. That isn’t quite human, 
Parksey boy; or rather it would betray sterner stuff 
than I suspect. Last fall you were longing for the 
hotbeds of the south, but still you stick. ... So 
evidently they, the invisible spirit . . . the intangible 
They, have brought pressure to bear; though why in 
the world they want to hold you here. ...” 


i8o 


BLACK GOLD 


"No, they haven’t,” Parks denied with sharpness. 

"Which at least proves there is a They. One step 
at a time. As to the form of pressure, we will not 
attempt to name it. We will merely say that because 
you know too much, you are not a safe man for cer¬ 
tain interests to allow in the south.” 

Parks face, after attempting bravado, had suddenly 
grown pallid, and his fingers twitched nervously. 

“ ’Tain’t so. It’s a lie,” he cried out. "You don’t 
know anything about it.” 

"That is quite all right, Parks,” Garry cajoled. 
"Perhaps, after all, you are the one who has chosen 
the right course, for I have every reason to know 
that drifting with the stream is a lot easier than fight¬ 
ing. But has it never occurred to you, Parks, that 
you might be a lot stronger than you are? It strikes 
me that one of the first principles of blackmail must 
be to get the other fellow to come across for the first 
time, and after that it should be easy. From all ap¬ 
pearances, it would seem that in your case the other 
fellow has already come across, and yet you sit down 
here, twiddling your thumbs, forgetting your power. 
Parks, I am astonished at you. With a club the size 
you are holding in your hands, why don’t you wave it 
over their heads a little oftener? And remember 
what Harne once told you, that if They ever throw 
you down, we are your friends.” 

Garry fancied he saw an answering gleam upon the 
other’s features, a light which flickered ever so faintly, 
as though he would, but dare not, speak. 


A CHANGED PARKS 181 

“Resides,” Garry added swiftly, “the law forgives 
those who turn state’s evidence.” 

It seemed that the little agent was created to have 
a troubled soul, for he winced again. After that, he 
was alternately weak and obdurate; and he became 
slightly superior when Garry asked to inspect the 
registration of claims. 

“Twenty claims,” Garry muttered, as he looked over 
the records. “Blocked the river, just as he threatened. 
Twenty claims, recorded a month ago, in the names of 
boatmen and all sorts of riff-raff. . . . And they just 
went North two days ago” . . . 

Parks was coldly unemotional, and he stared at 
something directly above Garry’s head, as though it 
were fascinating. 

“Talk about high finance and claim syndicating,” 
Garry muttered again, “and talk about turning state’s 
evidence. Well, Parks, you have a wonderful future 
before you; blackmail or state’s evidence. But of 
course you know nothing about that?” 

The man shook his head vigorously, and his glance 
shifted downward to study the pattern of the Persian 
rug beneath his feet. Then a smile came to Garry’s 
lips. 

“Some day,” he said, “either Harne or myself may 
come to you, Parks, and say that you are the only 
man alive who can save us from a cold-blooded 
swindle. We have gone up against a real bad man 
who doesn’t mind overtaking the limit about four 
times; and who has bought you a Persian rug. But 


182 


BLACK GOLD 


that raises a nice question, Parks. Is the rug worth 
it; particularly when you are not allowed to go south?” 

Garry started for the door; and Parks was smil¬ 
ing feebly, as might a man who sees fruits he dare not 
pick. So Garry waved his hand cheerfully as he 
stepped to the outer room. 

Just there he drew back in surprise. 

For seated with her back to the wall, apparently 
reading a magazine, was Elise Apperson, with all 
the stains of travel brushed away; and when she 
glanced up, there was a smile of candor and innocence 
upon her lips. In the first moment of surprise, Garry 
could not help but notice that Elise Apperson’s chair 
was near the door; and the door, all through his con¬ 
versation with Parks, had been ajar. 

“So it is you who have been monopolizing Mr. 
Parks,” the girl greeted. “They tell me he is a clever 
man, so I have come to him for advice. After that, 
I am returning to the hotel, so this evening, perhaps, 
if you are a good boy, you may call around . . 

With that, Elise Apperson slipped through the door¬ 
way into Parks’ office; and as Garry stood staring for a 
moment at the closed door, it seemed to him that there 
had been something a little strange in the girl’s man¬ 
ner. Or was it his own imagination? Of one thing 
he could be certain, and it was that the girl had left 
him deliberately, before he could recover from his 
astonishment. 


CHAPTER XXII 


UNCERTAINTY 

The waterfront had not been taken by Gilvert’s 
party; nor had Elise Apperson become any more com¬ 
municative. That was about all the day and the eve¬ 
ning brought forth; and Garry and Harlow had been 
on the survey for some days before there were any 
indications that their actions were of interest to 
anyone. 

It was Beaubien who warned them that a kayak 
was approaching; and with the news of that, Harlow 
laid down his instruments with care. 

“As you haven’t said,” Garry remarked, “it may be 
Gilvert and some of his party. He may have left 
spies behind him; and so if he has heard of this move 
of ours, it means . . 

“Trouble, exactly,” Harlow decided, as he looked 
uneasily at the instruments of his toil. “It would be 
simple for him to pick a quarrel, long enough at least 
to wreck our equipment. That, Hart, is our weak 
point, and we should have thought of it before.” 

At the edge of a rocky cliff they followed the direc¬ 
tion of Beaubien’s pointing finger, and there, below 
them, at the tree-strewn fringe of the river’s edge, 
183 


BLACK GOLD 


184 

they saw a kayak with its prow resting on the gravelly 
shore. 

“Oh!” said Harlow in relief, “it’s a woman; the 
rest are her boatmen.” 

Harlow was right; it was a woman; but the sight of 
her did not smooth all the lines from his brow. 

“Miss Apperson,” he continued. “She seems to be 
looking for somebody or something.” 

“Us,” Garry decided; and lines came to his forehead 
as well. 

Tom Harlow sighed. 

“I wish women wouldn’t do such things,” he pro¬ 
tested, “but since she is a woman, we come out into 
the open. Hail her, Beaubien.” 

There was some of the old diffidence in Elise 
Apperson’s manner as Garry met her on the gravelly 
beach; and there was restraint in his own greeting. 

“I hope I am not shocking you by coming here,” 
the girl’s attitude was openly careless, but back of 
that was a trace of the embarrassment he had noticed 
at their first meeting. “I have nothing but time on 
my hands, so I thought I would like to see how real 
surveyors do their work. Now surely we can find a 
sunny spot to sit down while you explain it all to me.” 

Harlow led the way up the bank to the sheltered 
spot where they had pitched their tents, and he ob¬ 
served that Miss Apperson had instructed her kayak- 
boatmen to remain behind. 

“Rather crude accommodations, Miss Apperson,” he 
remarked, as he offered a camp chair, “but it is the 


UNCERTAINTY 185 

best we have. Now what can we tell you about the 
survey ?” 

“That was all nonsense/' the girl laughed easily, 
“I thought you knew it was meant for the ears of the 
boatman only. I have seen surveyors at work before, 
and it looks about as uninteresting as it must feel. No, 
Mr. Harlow, don’t be shocked. But I came here for 
a definite purpose, to give you an opportunity to do 
me a favor.” 

“Consider it done, Miss Apperson,” Harlow smiled 
in return. “It must be important, or it would never 
have brought you across the bay.” 

“I don’t want you to think I have been interfering, 
but for the lack of anything else to do I have been 
talking to people; and they have told me a most in¬ 
teresting story of your feud with that man Gilvert,” 
the girl spoke slowly, as though feeling her way. 
“Mr. Parks told me a number of things, so when I saw 
you packing your things over here, it didn’t take much 
imagination to tell me that you are blocking the harbor. 
I have read of such things in books, and they have 
always seemed fascinating to me, but I never thought 
I would really see it being done. . . .” 

The girl paused as though at a loss how to proceed, 
and Garry experienced a sensation of alarm. It seemed 
quite unnatural that a girl of her years should have 
such a penetrating business mind; and that could mean 
but the one thing—it was somebody else’s mind spur¬ 
ring her on. 

“Really, Miss Apperson, you astonish me,” Harlow 


BLACK GOLD 


186 

replied coolly. “Who ever heard of blocking a harbor 
with a few bits of instruments like ours. . . .” 

“That doesn’t frighten me in the least/’ the girl 
returned with greater confidence, “so I am going to 
come out with it straight and tell you what I want you 
to do for me. I know it is foolish, but I feel I would 
like to get into the fight, on your side. So I want you 
to survey an extra harbor claim here and let me record 
it in my own name. Of course I will take the poorest 
claim, and I know it means a lot of work for you; but 
I do so want one.” 

For a minute or more it seemed that Harlow’s mind 
was engaged with swift thought. 

“As I said before, Miss Apperson, you may consider 
it done,” he replied. Then the girl sprang to her feet. 

“I will not delay you a single minute,” she exclaimed, 
as she started for the kayak, “for I know time is 
valuable.” 

Even after the kayak was upon the river, turned 
once more towards Valdez, Garry stood upon the bank 
pondering. 

“Now why can she want that claim?” he asked, 
in a puzzled way. 

“She is a queer one,” Harlow admitted, “but you 
have heard what they say about a chain being exactly 
as strong as its weakest link. And a belt thrown about 
the harbor front is probably about as useful as the hole 
which Miss Apperson has put into it. The time seems 
to have arrived for a study of human nature.” 

“It does,” Garry agreed. 


UNCERTAINTY 


187 

Yet three days later, when their work was finished, 
four claims were registered, three for their own party 
and one for Elise Apperson. For, in spite of the girl’s 
careful guarding of her words and her motives, it 
seemed to Garry that she grew more interesting, more 
attractive each day, so that even the thought of the 
far-off Marcile was no longer strong enough to make 
him view a journey to the Chitina Valley with the old 
relish. 

Yet that was what faced them now, a trip to the 
Chitina. In view of their move in blocking the only 
harbor, Harlow decided that it would be folly to take 
a large party into the North to attempt work and in¬ 
vite conflict with Gilvert. So they voted for two 
small kayaks, and though Garry informed Elise 
Apperson of their intentions, there was no further 
display of curiosity on her part. 

She stood upon the quay as they prepared to leave; 
she smilingly informed them that she would remain 
in Valdez until fall, she waved them a cheerful fare¬ 
well ; but she did not say or do a single thing to clear 
the mind of either man as to her exact place in the 
world. 

“She is a strange one,” Harlow muttered when the 
girl’s figure had become indistinguishable from dis¬ 
tance, “and you can take it from me, she is not stand¬ 
ing there simply for the sake of her health.” 

Garry agreed, then he fell into silence. For there 
were many motives which might have brought Elise 
Apperson to the North, and he felt that until he had 


188 


BLACK GOLD 


learned which motive had prompted her, he could never 
again know content. Yet ... up there in the North, 
in the valley of the Chitina, was Marcile . . . the 
Marcile who had reached out for civilization. 

Shortly he began to wonder if she had found it. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


TIME AND A GIRL 

There were times on the trail northward when 
Garry was glad of the opportunity to study the man 
Beaubien; yet he learned more of his life through an 
old violin than through any words of the man himself. 
On the long days of the trail there was time to observe 
that the French Canadian was a strange anomaly, and 
that beneath the dark and ragged mane of his hair 
there was a thin face which seemed to be pleading, 
almost fantastically poetical. The hands, though bat¬ 
tered with use, were small, and they held about them 
some of the lingering traces of the artist. The com¬ 
bination was grotesque; and then each night, as though 
to heighten it, Beaubien drew out his aged violin and 
sent out to the world the strange cries of his own 
improvised themes. 

Beaubien was not a musician, according to the ac¬ 
cepted definition of the word, yet there was something 
gripping about his work, something detached from 
his surroundings, as though for the time being he had 
forgotten all things but that theme which tormented 
his brain and which must find expression. 

When they reached the Chitina Valley and Harlow 
remained behind, Garry took Beaubien with him; and 
189 


190 


BLACK GOLD 


then, farther up the river they came to the missionary’s 
lodge, and at the river’s edge was a cry of greeting. 

There was still something of the joy of the child in 
Marcile’s laughter, but there was, as well, a growing 
sense of power which was not all immaturity. 

Through that first day, Garry came to know many 
things of the new Marcile, the Marcile whose lips had 
touched the cup of life, but whose wine was barely 
tasted. She had retained all her longing for the things 
of youth; yet there were changes. Perhaps it was 
because the new Marcile was now traveling the mys¬ 
terious road to womanhood; and what pleased him 
most was the subtle change which came over her fea¬ 
tures when he referred easily to Rupert Harne. The 
old Marcile who had flaunted her affections openly 
was buried in the past, and in her place had come the 
new Marcile whose lips were sealed, but whose cheeks 
burned a little, and whose brown eyes were looking 
clearly and firmly into the future. 

Garry learned that Gilvert had troubled her no more, 
that he seemingly had forgotten her; and he learned, 
as well, that in the heart of Marcile was a great yearn¬ 
ing for the things of the life of Rupert Harne. Linked 
with that was the strange whim that she must not 
see Harne again until she could stand before him more 
nearly upon his own level of civilization. And Garry 
learned as well that about that meeting the whole of 
her life, the present and the future, was circling. 

That was what the North had done for Marcile. 

It had made her as frank and direct as the land 


TIME AND A GIRL 


191 

itself; it made her move forward along the line lead¬ 
ing straightest to her one desire; it left her free and 
untarnished by the queer codes of convention; and yet 
it had given to her a heart as fresh and clean as its 
own winter snows. 

Marcile had chosen the pathway which led to sor¬ 
row. And Garry was wondering. Should he hold 
out the warning hand, or should he let her go bliss¬ 
fully on until she met her wounds at the end? 

The problem was still with him in the evening as 
he and Marcile and the Rev. Alexander Juneau sat in 
front of the missionary’s lodge, looking down upon 
the river. 

All about them was a wonder world. Beyond were 
the blue twilight hills, reaching up to kiss the vague 
blue of the sky. Below, was the riband of river 
glistening white; upon its bank was the campfire of 
the canoemen from which curled up listlessly a hazy 
spiral of smoke, and beside the fire one figure was 
crouched in silence. In the air about, upon the hills, 
across the valleys, the hushing spirit of peace and vast¬ 
ness was brooding like a living thing. It was the 
dead hour of twilight, and in the heart of Marcile 
was an undefined wistfulness. 

As the hills hazed imperceptibly into the hazy sky, 
silence fell upon them. Garry, who knew the moods 
of Beaubien, fancied that even through the distance 
he could see a shudder pass over the gaunt form. Then 
suddenly, far off, but near, like an evanescent thread 
of thought, Beaubien’s wild, weird music crept out 


192 


BLACK GOLD 


upon the air. It stole up through the pale twilight 
like a ghost through the dark. Perhaps it was the 
ameliorating distance, perhaps it was the giant staging, 
perhaps it was only the presence of those who listened; 
it may even have been that understanding came to 
the player’s haggard face, but Garry did not inquire 
which: he only knew that to-night this music was 
not the same. 

Out of it there had gone the cry of sorrow, the 
mystery of fruitless groping, leaving only the joy 
which glories in fulfilment. 

It was fine and delicate as the trill of spring; it was 
the essence of all living things; it was the darkness of 
night illumined; and back of it was something else, 
like the swift, sudden pang of the soul which glories 
in its desire. 

At first, the notes came fleeting and faint as the 
breeze which scarce stirs the aspens; then over and 
above the weakness of its birth it rose and triumphed as 
one who looks beyond the rim of defeat down into the 
valley of content. 

It was not long before Garry knew that Beaubien 
was lost in one of his strange, savage, transcendent 
themes. It was music which has never been written. 
Rather, it was not music. It was only the outburst- 
ing cry of the man’s momentary mood. It was played 
with little regard to written measure; in surroundings 
of civilization it might have been grotesque, but in this 
giant setting it was fascinatingly violent and beautiful. 


TIME AND A GIRL 


193 


It rose and fell with its own rhythmic cadences; it was 
the personal voice of human to human; it was a cry 
which found an answer somewhere in Marcile’s heart. 

As the theme mounted higher and higher beneath 
the sway of Beaubien’s humor, the girl’s grip grew 
tighter upon the missionary’s arm. At last her body 
began to shiver as one in the grasp of a great emotion, 
as one beneath a spell of wonder. Slow tears formed 
in her widening eyes, and fell upon her burning hands. 
She knew that some magic presence was there; she 
felt its passionate sway. Its crude ruggedness was 
only the crudeness of her land; its beauty was the un¬ 
placed cry in her soul. Marcile looked swiftly from 
one to the other, to see if they felt the things she 
felt; then as Beaubien’s cry seemed to leap above the 
earth, her lips parted in a little painful gasp. 

“What is it? Oh, God, what is it?” she whispered 
tensely. 

As Garry turned upon her, to see the blaze shining 
through the tears in her eyes, he realized that these 
must be sounds which she was hearing for the first 
time in her young life, that she had heard, but could 
not tell from where they came. 

“Music,” he answered. 

For a time they were silent again, while the strains 
grew softer and softer, while they dropped down from 
their heights, as hushes the cry of a child. Again the 
music came faintly and far away like the whispering 
of distant winds, dying so gently that one could not 


194 


BLACK GOLD 


know when first the silence began. As the notes of 
Beaubien’s wild theme slipped from them, Marcile 
sprang to her feet swiftly. 

“It is mine. Oh, God, it is mine,” she cried 
hoarsely, “I must have it.” And she threw out her 
arms as though reaching for some tangible quest. 

The missionary shuffled nervously on his doorstep. 

“How sweetly terrible that man plays,” he muttered, 
and Garry looked upon him curiously. 

“Yet it decides the future of Marcile,” he suggested. 

When the missionary looked into the girl’s face and 
saw all the longing which was written there, he, too, 
shook his head slowly. 

“Yes, I must lose her/’ he said. 

In Marcile’s eyes there still lived some of that blaze 
of wonder. 

“Where, where did it come from?” she demanded, 
“I have read of the beauty of music. I have heard it 
now, but I cannot see.” 

Garry shook the moodiness from him as he replied 
with a laugh. 

“Why, it was that silly boatman of mine. He plays 
wretchedly, Marcile. He couldn’t get an engagement 
even in a Dawson music hall, and goodness knows 
they’re not particular there. But he can make sounds 
which frighten a person way down inside himself. I 
will call him. Here, Beaubien. Come here with your 
screeching fiddle.” 

When Beaubien came, some of the fanatic music 
still glowed from his mad eyes. Except for that, 


TIME AND A GIRL 


195 


his ungainly figure was drooping limply as though 
some of the life had just gone from him, as though the 
body were one thing, the soul another, with nothing 
remaining of either but that one blazing spark far back 
in his brain. The picturesqueness had gone from his 
figure, to leave it woeful and draggled. Marcile took 
the battered, homely violin from the man’s hands, 
she drew the shapeless bow across the worn strings, 
and a grating, unmusical sound startled her. 

Swiftly she drew back. She stared from the rough 
instrument in her hands to the still rougher form of 
man, and she shook her head sadly, puzzled. 

“How is it ?” she looked from one to the other won- 
deringly. “You must tell me, Beaubien.” 

“Dieu! Qu’est-ce?” said the man, startled, “mais, 
one does not learn such music; it comes from here, 
cela!” 

The man drew his hand across his forehead as one 
who suffers, who has seen the heights for a moment, 
only to be thrust back into darkness. 

“Show me,” the girl pressed, as she put the instru¬ 
ment gently into his hands. 

“Mais, non ” the man returned thickly. “Moi, I 
cannot, it is gone!” 

“Your quest, it was near?” Garry suggested. “You 
seemed so glad, it must have been near.” 

For an instant the man stared dumbly, and he shook 
his head heavily before replying. 

“Moi, it was near, ver near; deja, it is gone.” 

Then even the last glow died from Beaubien’s eyes, 


196 


BLACK GOLD 


and he stumbled from them drunkenly. Now all that 
was left was the hulking body. The poetic refinement 
was gone from the thin, savage features. Though 
the campfire burned on, long into the midnight, a tiny 
star by the river’s edge, there was no more music that 
night. The man’s form was crouching close above 
the glowing coals and his chin was buried in his hands. 

“He seems like a man with some great sorrow,” 
the missioner mused humbly, some time later. 

“He talks little,” Garry returned, glad of the chance 
to shake off the oppression which embraced them all. 
“He is a strange man, a fanatic. At times I think him 
half crazed. But he is a good canoeman, and while 
he frightens me with that fearful music, he fascinates. 
He seems like a man searching for something he can¬ 
not find, though to-night there was more gladness in 
his playing; it was more triumphant. The man must 
have an enemy, for at times his violin wakens me in the 
night, and then it sounds more like an animal tearing 
the limbs of another.” 

But the end was that Marcile had found the dual 
half of her ideal. She had loved all forms of beauty 
in a passionate way, and music was but its newest 
form. That strange wild theme of Beaubien had 
kindled in her an emotion more powerful than desire. 

“You will teach me that music,” Marcile whispered, 
as she moved closer to the side of the missionary, 
“it is so wonderful.” 

When the missionary looked up, Garry found new 


TIME AND A GIRL 


197 

strength in his features; and when the eyes of the men 
met, there was the flash of a real fire. 

“Yes, Hartley Garry, I will send her south. I will 
find a way.” 

“And Abner Gilvert?” 

“Gilvert be . . . blowed!” the Rev. Alex Juneau re¬ 
turned, as his eyes lit up with a smile. 

“Stronger, and I’m with you,” Garry added, as he 
joined in the confused laughter. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


YOUTH MEETS YOUTH 

There were perils, Garry recognized, perhaps more 
for the future than for the present, in smuggling 
Marcile down the Copper River at night and so past 
the encampment of Abner Gilvert in the Chitina Val¬ 
ley; and the justification he sought was provided by 
Juneau. 

“I am old, Monsieur Garry, I am old,” he spoke 
gently, now that the act was in prospect, “but I have 
seen other women who have lived here in the north as 
Marcile would live and there is within her, as in all 
human beings, the instinct of life, but without knowl¬ 
edge. And boy, my boy, even you are old enough to 
know that there could be but the one end. . . . Yes, I 
must choose; you, or other men. I have watched you, 
and I think I know. Yes, there is but the one way. 
Steal her, if we must.” 

So Garry stole Marcile, and on the journey south, 
as he watched her struggling with her excitement and 
gaining control of her emotions, there was but one 
problem which really mattered. 

He had known from the first that there must be 
some responsible woman who could help to mould the 
future of Marcile, and in knowing that, he had thought 
198 


YOUTH MEETS YOUTH 


199 

of Elise. But long before he reached Valdez he knew 
the weakness of that. 

They touched dock with the point unsolved, and it 
was then that Garry appreciated the uncertainty of 
his position, for there were tongues in Valdez which 
must wag. 

“Beaubien, we’re in a hole,” he took the boatman 
aside. “Does anybody in this place know much about 
you?” 

“Non. Not much, except that I am as the winds 
that blow.” 

“Good. Well, you are going to get something to 
steady you down. If anybody asks, Marcile is your 
daughter.” 

A swift change came over the boatman’s features. 
For an instant his eyes grew brilliant, gleaming as they 
must have gleamed when he played his wild music; 
then just as abruptly as it came the lustre faded, and 
his limbs seemed to lose their strength, as they always 
did when he reached some savage height in that hid¬ 
den story of his violin. 

“You mean ... to pretend,” he said, dully. “ Moi . 
I see. She must be somebody’s daughter. Ver well. 
She be Beaubien’s.” 

Garry was still wondering at the man’s mood, when 
he heard his own name called. That was pleasing, for 
the voice was that of Elise Apperson. 

She was perched upon a pile of merchandise which 
had apparently been left by the last steamer; she was 
dressed much more like the North than was the Elise 


200 


BLACK GOLD 


he had known before; and even at a distance he could 
see that the northland had already left some of its 
sparkle in her eyes, some of its pink in her cheeks, and 
some of the wild cry of nature in the vitality of her 
body. For Elise Apperson leaped down lightly and 
held out her hand. 

“Such a surprise!” she exclaimed. “I thought you 
were not coming back for weeks.” 

The hand which he held in his own was streaked 
with red, with a stroke of green, and a little azure. A 
touch of yellow stood out against the pink of her left 
cheek, and the garment which hung loosely from her 
shoulders was spotted and daubed with all manner of 
colors and their intermingling. 

“Oh!” he said, “an artist. You have been sketch¬ 
ing the harbor; but you didn’t tell me before.” 

“You didn’t ask me. Besides, if I ever turn com¬ 
mercial, I will hire an advertising man. . . . Oh, what 
a wonderful creature you have with you. Isn’t 
she amazing? And I say it, even though I am a 
woman. Eyes, great brown innocent eyes, surprised 
at the world. Such color in her cheeks and lips. 
And such hair. Mr. Garry, I’ve just got to sketch her. 
I’m excited about it already. Look at that hair, how 
it hangs over her shoulders like silken ropes; and the 
glitter of it when the sun strikes. What an Indian 
I would call her, if I couldn’t tell she was white. 
There is something Indian about her, in spite of her 
white blood; there just has to be, with that shyness of 
eye and freedom of limb, and that great wide-eyed 


YOUTH MEETS YOUTH 


201 


innocence. Hartley, I’m just crazy to sketch her at 
once. Look at the grace of her. I wonder if she 
would let me. But I was forgetting; you must know 
all about her. Will you ask her to sit for me? And 
I do believe she is looking at me. She makes me 
uneasy. When she looks at me that way she makes 
me feel like an animal in a cage. She is looking me 
up and down, every inch of me, and there isn’t the least 
sign of anything personal in her whole manner.” 

Garry laughed, as pleased as a boy. He was doubly 
pleased. Pleased because of the new interest he had 
brought into the life of Elise Apperson, and pleased 
because of the impression made by Marcile. 

‘‘You must let me introduce you,” Garry said, as 
soon as he had recovered his voice. “That is Marcile 
. . . Beaubien. You know Beaubien. You have seen 
him before. Marcile is studying you, I must admit. 
And isn’t she a wonderful little wild animal? But 
you must not object to being studied a little, for you are 
the first real white woman from the south that Marcile 
has ever seen, and her heart is breaking to become a 
lady just like you. For some queer reason which I 
have never understood, she has always been kept among 
the Nootkas; but to save her from a completely broken 
heart, Beaubien is sending her to Sitka to acquire some 
of the graces of the outer world. I am glad you like 
her, Elise, for she is such a delightful little thing, 
when you get to know her; besides . . 

“Delightful?” Elise Apperson asked, with a slight 
raising of the brows. 


202 


BLACK GOLD 


“Now please do not pre-judge until you have heard 
the whole story,” Garry begged, “for there is going 
to be plenty of chance to hear it. We decided, on the 
way down, that we would try to persuade you to take 
Marcile under your wing, as it were. We do not want 
to interfere with your affairs, but if you only could 
manage to go south with her for a few months ...” 

Circumstance had taken charge, and perhaps that 
was the better way. 

“We will see about that later,” Elise interrupted 
quickly, as though attempting to conceal some emotion. 
“Now please let me meet this delightfully frank-eyed 
and innocently-wild young thing from the north.” 

It was apparent to Garry, as he watched the two 
girls together, that each had taken an instinctive lik¬ 
ing for the other. On the part of Marcile, that was 
only natural, for Elise was the first white woman she 
had ever seen who was typically of the south; and 
besides, Garry told himself, she was of that particular 
type to whom all people take quickly. There was noth¬ 
ing surprising in the fact that Marcile had accepted 
Elise with a swift and open friendship; nor was there 
anything surprising in Elise’s return of that friendship. 
For women, as well as men, like contrasts. 

“You see, Beaubien, you are going to be the belle- 
ringer of the town, with a daughter like that,” Garry 
bantered; but the French-Canadian merely grinned 
and set about his work with a new vigor. 

“We go back, soon?” he asked. 

“Depends on Miss Apperson,” Garry returned; and 


YOUTH MEETS YOUTH 


203 


when he sought them out some time later he found that 
Elise had become surprisingly docile, so far as the 
responsibility for Marcile was concerned. 

“Isn’t she a strange little body,” she exclaimed, “and 
so confiding. She quite swept me off my feet; the 
naive way in which she spoke of your friend, Mr. 
Harne, and of her . . . ambition.” 

For an instant, Garry wondered if he should tell 
this girl of the bondage of Rupert Harne; but her 
eyes were so bright and her manner was so vivacious 
with the promise of the future, that he quite lacked the 
courage. Some day, perhaps, she must know all; but 
in this moment he could not take the glory from the 
eyes of Elise Apperson, any more than he could take 
it from the heart of Marcile. 

“I must paint her, beside Beaubien,” the girl said 
later. “That would make a wonderful picture; Beau¬ 
bien, battered and storm-tossed; Marcile, wide-eyed 
and innocent, with the world opening before her. But 
back of it, there is the same thing in their features; so 
I would have known, had I not been told, that she was 
Beaubien’s daughter.” 

Deception, before this girl, in the moment of her 
great service to another? 

Garry’s shoulders straightened, and his head drew 
more erect. One end had come. For come what 
might, Elise Apperson must know the truth. 

So he told her the story of Marcile, as he knew it, 
omitting nothing, not even the stolen passage down the 
river at night past the encampment of Abner Gilvert; 


204 


BLACK GOLD 


and as he told it, he could see the fluctuating emotions 
of anger, and pity, and cool determination taking their 
places upon the features of the girl before him. 

“That does not alter anything,” she said quietly, 
when the story was finished, “not even my belief in 
the resemblance between them. Very well, I will go 
south with her on the next boat.” 

That was a fortnight later, and as they stood on the 
dock waiting for the departure, it seemed that Marcile 
was the center of many eyes. 

Garry could understand that; for she made a re¬ 
markably pretty picture as she stood at the edge of the 
deck, with the wind blowing back her hair in great 
waves, and with the excitement and lure of the un¬ 
known south leaping from her brown eyes and show¬ 
ing in the crimson of her parted lips. As Garry stood 
by the girl’s side, Beaubien drew near and he touched 
a loosened strand of her hair, in a distant, impersonal 
way. 

“Tiens, it is the same,” he muttered aloud. 

He pointed a trembling finger at the animated eyes, 
at the brown, hectic cheeks. 

“Tiens, they are the same,” he muttered again, as 
one who dreams. 

Garry laughed uneasily. 

“What’s the worry, Beaubien?” he asked. 

The boatman started, as though only then conscious 
of the other’s presence. 

“What is?” he returned. “Rien. Beaubien is one 
tarn fool.” 


YOUTH MEETS YOUTH 


205 

Then he turned out an inner pocket and thrust a 
great roll of bills into Garry’s hands. 

“My daughter. Then Beaubien must pay,” he 
grinned. 

Garry thrust the bills back, but the boatman was 
firm. 

“Ma coeur, my heart, it is burning!” Beaubien ex¬ 
claimed. “She, la petite , sets it on fire. She would 
make heavenly music like mine. Moi, it is I who 
must help her.” 

“Since it is as bad as that, all right,” Garry re¬ 
turned, as he accepted a portion of the money. 

Then he waved his farewells with a little touch of 
sadness, for something seemed to whisper that never 
again would he know the Marcile of the Nootkas, but 
that the Marcile who must return would be the Marcile 
of the south and its civilization. 


CHAPTER XXV 


DOOLITTLE IN ACTION 

Court proceedings, for the most part delayed and 
providing the harvest home for one class of citizens 
only, appeared to progress with unusual facility in 
the case of Rupert Harne. 

Had he been trained to think only of the present, 
Harne might have been inclined to find a personal 
triumph in certain official remarks made in his presence 
as to the triviality of the Doolittle claims. He as¬ 
suredly would have been gratified to see the Doolittle 
case cast out, almost with contempt; and if the per¬ 
sonal element were particularly strong, there would 
have been another triumph in the fact that Edith 
Pellinger was an interested listener to the court’s brief 
findings. 

But with men like Doolittle, the future is but one 
huge gambling ground of fortune; so when the man, 
in the face of preliminary defeat, merely glanced at 
the bench, still coldly smiling, Harne did not need to 
be told that, in this moment, defeat to Doolittle was 
but the same thing as victory. 

The triumph was all Edith Pellinger’s, for she 
looked at him now with such pride of possession that 
the surface phases of his romance were quite plain to 
206 


DOOLITTLE IN ACTION 


207 


all who chose to read. A Sunday supplement man, 
whom some strange fate had thrust into the court¬ 
room with the rest of the newspapermen, turned in¬ 
quiring eyes from one to the other; then he leaned 
towards the legal gentlemen and inquired in a semi- 
audible voice if that were the daughter of Swedevaris 
Pellinger. The answer brought a still more curious 
glance, for it was common knowledge of late that 
Pellinger was wearing the same financial harness as 
Ramsey Doolittle. 

“Worth watching,” said the Sunday supplement 
man. “Romance in high life, a jewel more rare than 
pink-eyed diamonds.” 

But Harne knew nothing of the interest which had 
been aroused in the side eddies of life; for his legal 
representative had come to him with a well-defined 
glitter in his eye. 

“Got Doolittle on the run,” he descended to language 
far beneath the gown he wore. “Wants to see us in 
the chambers. Offers of settlement, and all that.” 

The chambers were spacious, but the general scheme 
of things was somehow familiar to Rupert Harne. 
For Swedevaris Pellinger was there, and his pose and 
setting differed little from that which Harne had seen 
before. 

He was seated at the head of a table, with hands 
outspread, and with a legal document between them; 
but there was still in his attitude the bearing of a 
driven slave. Doolittle was seated at some distance, 
with the same air of watchful hovering, with the same 


208 


BLACK GOLD 


cold smile, and the same pose of the ring-master who 
wields the lash of the whip. He was silent, as he had 
been silent on another occasion such as this; and yet 
Swedevaris Pellinger spoke only after a glance of 
instruction. 

“You have won your case, Harne, so we are offering 
settlement,” Pellinger spoke gruffly. “We have come 
to the point where we appreciate that our terms must 
be particularly generous, and in view of that, we have 
the papers prepared. If you will sign now, the whole 
thing can be closed up in a day.” 

Pellinger thrust the document forward, but Harne 
merely glanced at it, then met the keen little eyes of 
Ramsey Doolittle. The legal gentleman reached for¬ 
ward, rather too eagerly, took the paper and read 
hurriedly. 

Then a slight gasping sound escaped his lips. 

“What is the meaning of this, this insult?” he de¬ 
manded, as his angry eyes ran here and there, but found 
only silence. “You know what they are offering you, 
Harne?” 

“Precisely. One dollar.” 

“Then you're wrong. It’s fifty cents.” 

“A particularly generous offer, in view of circum¬ 
stances,” Pellinger put in, like a boy forced to recite 
that thing he hates, “but of course, if you do not 
accept. . . 

“Accept?” cried the legal gentleman, as he tore the 
document into strips and tossed it upon the table before 
Ramsey Doolittle. 


DOOLITTLE IN ACTION 


209 


The latter rose, with the coldly smiling lights in his 
eyes, he bowed politely; then he spoke for the first 
time through the scene of his own creating. 

“I must ask to be excused,” he said; and he made 
hi$ way daintily from the room. 

Within the hour the legal gentleman made the dis¬ 
covery that the Doolittle faction had begun its second 
case. It was, on the face of it, somewhat more serious 
than the first, for it charged nothing less than the syn¬ 
dicating of coal claims. That, if proved, meant the bar¬ 
ring of Harne from the northern fields for all time; 
and the details of the charge were such as to bring 
a flush of anger even to Harne’s placid cheeks. 

Syndicating, being the particular bane of the law, 
could rely upon drastic punishment, if traced home to 
its lair; and any grouping of claims under one owner¬ 
ship of management, to any number greater than four, 
constituted a syndicate. 

And now there had come a written statement from 
the north, sworn to by Abner Gilvert, that Harne had 
located six claims in the Chitina Valley, two in excess 
of the legal limit. The claims were held by Harne, 
Garry, Marcile, Maneto, Parks and Gilvert himself; 
and now Gilvert was claiming to be one of the inside 
members of Harne’s syndicate who wanted to turn 
state’s evidence. 

That alone would have kept Harne from the north, 
even if there had not been the lure of Edith Pellinger 
clinging about him. There were times, he fancied, 
when the woman in her was beginning to understand; 


210 


BLACK GOLD 


yet her interest in the north and in the life which 
might be his, flashed out only in those moments when 
the sky seemed to be clearing and when the way seemed 
to be opening for him to go back to his land of hope. 

She was still the sybarite, clinging and faithful, find¬ 
ing in his fight a certain personal glory; and answer¬ 
ing the challenge of the North with her own wiles. 
She would go with him, yes, when the time came; yet 
even so, she felt for Ramsey Doolittle a definite grati¬ 
tude. For it was Doolittle who held Harne in the 
east, who delayed from week to week the time when 
she must face that challenge of the far-off land, and 
must fight with it for the love of the only man who 
had yet resisted her. 

And while Harne waited, caught up once more in 
the eddy of the summer swirl which was as the breath 
of life itself to Edith Pellinger, he found himself bat¬ 
tling with the conflicting elements. For through the 
swirl he searched for more finance; and as the weeks 
slipped away he felt with more and more force the 
tightening of Doolittle’s arms about him. 

Under the constant pressure of court actions, the 
fifty thousand advanced by Burton was flowing away 
like a river, and the payment of that was beginning to 
loom before him like a shadow upon the horizon. Ex¬ 
cept for the power of Doolittle and the secret pressure 
the man exerted, it would have been almost impossible 
to believe that finance could be so shy; and yet even 
that, he knew, was providing for him a weapon, if he 
could but find the way to use it. For there were men 


DOOLITTLE IN ACTION 


211 


to whom he presented his case who could not be fright¬ 
ened by Doolittle, who could be held off in but the one 
way, and that the sharing of the pillage. Somewhere, 
beneath the surface, there must be a huge syndicate 
in the forming, made up of those men whom Doolittle 
could not totally control, and whose deeds, if brought 
to the surface, would be shattering to their own ends. 
But that was something whose existence he could only 
fancy; and Harne was still pursuing the rainbow of 
finance when Doolittle and Pellinger found him again. 

The document was there, as before, between Pell- 
inger’s outspread hands; yet it was Doolittle who now 
spoke. 

“Except that we are particularly fair men, deter¬ 
mined to do justice to all, we would not make this 
third and last offer of settlement,” Doolittle’s voice was 
humane and deeply considerate. “Word has just 
reached us of your trickery in the north, but we are 
tolerant men, quite prepared to overlook it. However, 
the fact that your men, Garry and Harlow, have suc¬ 
ceeded in tying up the only outlet for the Chitina coal 
is having a marked bearing upon the offer we now 
make.” 

Doolittle’s hand waved gently, and Pellinger thrust 
forward the inevitable legal document. Harne took 
it, with fingers eager to tear it into shreds; then a 
certain mild light upon Doolittle’s features caused him 
to pause. 

He was the type, beyond doubt, who could be whipped 
into reason, and there was a possibility that Harlow’s 


212 


BLACK GOLD 


master stroke at the harbor front had already borne 
its harvest. For the coal of the Chitina, though there 
were myriads of tons of it, would be futile without an 
outlet. 

So he opened the document, and read, and when he 
glanced over the top of it he found triumph in the 
eyes of Ramsey Doolittle. Baiting, it seemed, was a 
part of the motive of the man’s life. 

“The offer,” he said, “is eminently fair, in view 
of all the conditions. It is the third and last we will 
ever make.” 

“Twenty-five cents. That I consider excessive,” 
Harne returned, “and you will pardon me if I do not 
tear this document to pieces, for I have an idea that 
some day I will have it framed and will hang it behind 
my desk as a reminder of the munificence of mankind.” 

Doolittle rose, bowed politely, and was well on his 
way to the door when it seemed that an afterthought 
struck him. 

“There is another little matter,” he said easily. 
“Doubtless you will be able to take care of it, but it 
is that little affair of yours with Burton, of Burton & 
Laxton. You understand, the fifty thousand. Mr. 
Burton, poor chap, rather got involved with some of 
my stocks. Let himself in for a couple of hundred 
thousand; but I really am too tender hearted to do 
business. When he offered me certain securities for 
your fifty thousand dollar account, I was foolish 
enough to take them. Poor chap. I lose heavily by 


DOOLITTLE IN ACTION 


213 


it, but you, of course, will be able to meet the obligation 
in a month or so.” 

Doolittle’s cold politeness went its own way; but that 
was the first real panic which came to Rupert Harne. 

It was not now a matter of millions, but of thou¬ 
sands, and when the first shock of it had passed away, 
Harne found but the one thing to do, and that was to 
renew the search. 

Days slipped away which were more or less frantic 
in their endeavor; and then, through the hours of dark¬ 
ness there came to him another message. It was the 
brokerage house of Everington & Fargus which inferred, 
indirectly, that it might be wise to call; but it was 
that same thing which the man Burton had inferred at 
the very moment his mind was intent only upon the 
trap. Yet Harne called, and the answer was but mildly 
pleasing. The firm, Everington & Fargus, it devel¬ 
oped, had a client in Seattle, a few thousand miles 
away, who had an unpleasant tilt of the past to wipe 
off the score of Ramsey Doolittle; and Everington & 
Fargus, having been instructed to watch for openings, 
had taken the liberty of bringing the interested parties 
into touch. There might be some temporary mystery 
about it, for the individual chose to be known only 
by the. indefinite name of Sunshine-Shadows. But 
there was an address; and would Harne care to go 
west? 

The affair, of course, was but another Burton in¬ 
cident. Still, with the east barren before his efforts, 


214 


BLACK GOLD 


Harne would go west, and then north. For if this 
failed, then his whole castle had fallen, and the cold 
smile of Ramsey Doolittle would be justified. 

And Edith Pellinger? 

It was to be her test as well, her battle with the 
challenge of the north. There was something in her 
attitude which told him that, told him at the same 
time of her surety of victory. 

Yet the call upon Sunshine-Shadows was not quite 
another Burton affair; though it was but little more 
gratifying. The individual with the stage-like name 
turned out to be a woman, rather young, somewhat 
business-like, yet on the whole bearing a certain air of 
unreality. 

The way in which she sat behind her desk seemed 
to imply that she was but a hurried substitute for a 
man; but Harne nevertheless told his story, and she 
listened calmly, quite without emotion. 

“Thank you, Mr. Harne,” she said quite placidly, 
when he had finished, “I will have the matter looked 
into, and if there are any results, I will let you know.” 

Too calm and cold about it, for though Harne had 
not hoped for much from the interview, he was still 
disappointed. The whole future, he feared, was hang¬ 
ing upon this feeble thread, and even so the woman 
might be a tool of Doolittle’s. 

“You appreciate the need for haste, if you are to be 
of any help to me?” he asked. 

“Exactly. I think I have the dates in my mind 
almost as well as yourself; but you understand I can- 


DOOLITTLE IN ACTION 


215 

not do anything until I have heard from Mr. Doolittle 
or one of his representatives.” 

It was, of course, precisely as he had feared. 

“I am sorry,” he said, as he crossed to the doorway, 
“sorry that women have to be pulled into a thing like 
this by such a man as Doolittle. If I had known, I 
would not have called. I presume you will not deny 
that it is a trap?” 

Sunshine-Shadows looked at him more closely, and 
even through the disappointment of the moment he 
was conscious of her fascination. He had not noticed 
that before, but it was there, another form of capital 
which played the game of Ramsey Doolittle. 

Then she nodded, slowly. 

“You are right, Mr. Harne, it is a trap; I mean it 
is intended for one. . . .” 

He closed the door and went down the stairway, and 
so he did not hear the rest of her words. 

. . But for whom?” 

So Harne wrote to Garry the full story of the fail¬ 
ure; and out of the mass of details there was but one 
hope for them now. And that was to turn conviction 
into fact ... to prove that Doolittle was really syn¬ 
dicating. In this, there was work which Garry could 
do in the north, and that was to search for the Chitina 
end of Doolittle’s syndicate. 

It was an undertaking which took Garry to the office 
of Land Agent Parks, and the latter, he found, no 
longer cringed. 

“Which is it to be?” Garry greeted, “Blackmail 


216 


BLACK GOLD 


or state’s evidence. But excuse me, I am rambling. 
Just let me see your records while I copy down the 
names of the twenty brave men and true who registered 
those Chitina claims before they got there. Registered 
all around our claims. I say US advisedly, for you 
are in it now, Parks. I am thinking of taking you on 
as a mascot, you have had such good luck yourself. 
. . . But isn’t human nature a strange thing?” 

Parks blinked, as though some remote portion of 
his brain warned him against a trap which the im¬ 
mediate portion of his brain could not detect. 

“Pm guessing we ain’t all alike,” he returned 
evasively. 

“Yet here are twenty gallant men and true who 
are alike, whose souls—or is it their hearts?—beat 
with but a single thought.” Garry smiled in turn, as 
he studied the records of the land agent, “Twenty 
hearts pulsing with but a single desire, and that desire 
a burning greed to locate a coal claim on the Chitina 
Valley. And all that greed culminates on a single 
day; I will bet, Parksey boy, within a single hour. 
What a strange thing is humanity, that men from 
scattered points, from Seattle to Valdez, twenty of 
them, should line up here on a single day, with claims 
from the Chitina which have not yet been surveyed. 
Life has done a queer thing with these twenty brave 
men and true, for I will warrant, Parksey, that every 
last one of them is now with Abner Gil vert in the 
north.” 

As the remark was more a question than anything 


DOOLITTLE IN ACTION 


217 

else, Parks blinked again. He opened his lips, then 
he clicked them shut again. 

“Yet some of them are the rag-tag and the riff-raff 
of Valdez,” Garry went on, “and regrettable though 
it is, coal claims come high. Ten dollars per acre, and 
the government commission comes after. Sixteen 
hundred dollars per claim, for the man who goes the 
limit. And I see these twenty courageous men and 
true have each gone the limit, making in all, Mr. 
Parksey boy, a tidy little sum of thirty-two thousand 
dollars which passed into your hands in the space of 
a day, perhaps in the space of an hour. For every 
claim is marked paid in full, for value received, with 
nary a scratch against it. Parks, you are clever; 
but so am I. Pm on the trail. . . 

Garry’s last words were uttered more in a spirit of 
youthfulness than anything else, but glancing into the 
face of the agent, he could detect no traces of humor 
on the nervous features of Parks. The agent was 
chewing off little fragments of the black cigar, and 
was strewing them about, regardless of the Persian 
rug. 

“You are a silly fool,” Parks muttered, with an 
affectation of ease. 

“So I am on the trail,” Garry replied, with a touch 
of recklessness in his laughter. “All right, here we 
go, theory and Sherlock and Doc Watson all in the 
same boat. Now, bright-eyed Parks, come to my res¬ 
cue. Thirty-two thousand paid into your hands in one 
day, in one hour? No, in one minute. Ah, Parks, I 


2 l8 


BLACK GOLD 


have it. They threw it all at you at once, in a check, 
perhaps. And you, Parks, sent that check to the gov¬ 
ernment officials at Sitka. Now what did you do with 
the receipt which came back?” 

Hartley Garry, caught in his own histrionic mood, 
stepped forward, and he crouched above Parks in a 
threatening attitude, though in his mind there was no 
thought of violence. 

“Come, villain,” he declaimed. “The check. The 
paper. Where is it ?” 

Park’s eyes suddenly roved about the room, as 
though the queer conduct of Hartley Garry was more 
than he could understand. Then for an instant his 
glance rested upon the massive little safe embedded in 
the wall, and a wave of fright swept over his features. 

“Don’t be a fool, Mr. Garry,” he tried to laugh 
back, “there isn’t any such check, or any such receipt. 
I know you’re only acting; but please don’t do it. 
You make me nervous.” 

“Right you are, Parks. I was only acting, but you 
told me what I wanted to know, that you keep that 
government receipt in your safe, and now I would like 
to try to impress upon you just how important that 
little scrap of paper may be to you some day. Sit 
down with me and listen. You know syndicating is 
illegal. You know anything more than four claims 
constitutes a syndicate, and you know that Abner Gil- 
vert, either with his own or Ramsey Doolittle’s check, 
or checks, bought up those twenty claims now registered 


DOOLITTLE IN ACTION 


219 


in the names of the riff-raff and the bob-tags of Val¬ 
dez, claims they are just starting to survey now. . . 

“Of all the absurd twaddle. . . Parks laughed 
boisterously. 

“Don’t interrupt me, Parks. And you know that 
Gilvert and Doolittle have their thumbs on you so 
tight that you’re squeezed into nothing but a cigar- 
chewing wreck of the north. But you know, Parksey, 
that some day every worm turns. Some day you can 
bust them, blow them into the air, with that little scrap 
of paper. But, Parks, if I were you, and I loved my 
miserable little body as you love yours, I would hide 
that scrap of paper. Wear it in a secret chamber in 
the sole of your boot, take it out and bury it in a 
salmon can; but don’t, oh, don’t leave it in that modern 
contraption called a safe, where some day it may tempt 
Gilvert’s minions to leave your blood strewn upon the 
floor. Now, Parks, at this dramatic point, shiver.” 

“Youth is always absurd,” Parks returned, some¬ 
what feebly. 

“But youth will help you, Parks, when you need it. 
Remember that. And now that we are on terms of 
understanding, but not of confidence, tell me which one 
of Gilvert’s twenty valiant men and true is the most 
disreputable. I mean, the most shiftless, down at the 
heel, hang-dog, lazy. . . 

“If you’re looking fer somebody to talk to, you 
might try Roger Banks. He used to fish, but now he 
don’t.” 


220 


BLACK GOLD 


“Thanks, Parks, you are a true tipster. And be¬ 
sides fishing for free claims, what else does he fish 
for?” 

“Fish,” Parks returned, with a giggle. 

“Now between us, man for man, would you say 
that Roger Banks ever sold sixteen hundred dollars 
worth of fish in his whole life? Think well, Parksey 
boy.” 

“He might, if he lived to be a hundred and he had 
started young enough. . . .” 

“That will do. Don’t commit yourself too far, 
Parks. Abner Gilvert or some of his crew might hear 
of it. But for me, a tip is enough. So Parks, here’s 
my hand. You are a real friend, and when they get 
you cornered, throw you on the floor, and try to stamp 
on you, don’t forget that Hart Garry will always have 
one ear turned in your direction to hear your call for 
help. Now don’t look frightened. I know you haven’t 
said anything, but you have told me a lot.” 

With a new elation which did not fail to impart a 
little cheer to the cheerless Parks, Garry turned and 
left the land office, and as he went he could not help 
but reflect on the truth of his words. He was won¬ 
dering what would be the fate of Parks if Gilvert 
should suspect his leaning of friendship. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


THE NEW MARCILE 

Garry stood in the shadows as the girl stepped con¬ 
fidently into the room and looked calmly about her. 

Though he had seen this new Marcile before, he 
caught his breath sharply and stood staring straight 
before him. For she was a glowing, radiant creature; 
she was the spirit of the north, with all the alluring 
visions of the future shining in her sparkling eyes. 
She was the goddess of hope; and as Garry looked 
more closely he could see that through and about the 
color of the new Marcile the former years had left 
their manifold paintings, speaking of a life filled with 
the gladness of sunshine, and of a soul which must 
go on eternally loving the giant spaces which had given 
her ideals as exalted and steadfast as their own founda¬ 
tions. She was the new Marcile who had come north 
while Elise Apperson remained in the south and as 
she made her way towards him, Garry could see the 
sincerity of her new purpose in life reflected from her 
in many ways, all as intrinsically interwoven as a 
pattern of music; and as he watched he could not but 
think of her as coming thus to the arms of Rupert 
Harne, as gladly and as unaffectedly as the flower 
221 


222 


BLACK GOLD 


which lifts its head to the kiss of the sun. In her man¬ 
ner there was the same proud uplift, the same wonder 
which one fears to crush with rude fingers, the same 
silent trust. 

“Hello Hart,” she greeted, with a new tone of self- 
command in her voice. “I have fixed up in my most 
wonderful, as you asked me to; and when you sit 
on your throne in judgment, please remember that 
I was once a Nootka. Now, Mr. Judge, spin me 
around, size me up, and tell me . . . Will I do?” 

Garry stepped from the shadows, and he took 
Marcile’s hands in his own. 

“Of course you will do,” he declared with vigor. 
“The change is remarkable. You go south as a 
Nootka, if you will call it that; and you come back 
as a conservatory flower. No, something a bit more 
than that. . . .” 

His words, eager as they were to conceal the past, 
stumbled at the threshold of the future. For off there 
in the south, seated doubtless on the deck of a steamer 
with the moonlight playing over him, would be Rupert 
Harne. And at his side would be Edith Pellinger. 

Should he tell Marcile the truth, or should he let 
her run on to the end of her dream ? 

Some part of the problem of that must have been 
reflected from Garry's countenance, for the girl cried 
out sharply, with a little tightening of her hands in 
his. 

“What is it, Hart?” she exclaimed. “Why do you 
look at me like that? With sorrow?” 


THE NEW MARCILE 


223 


Garry stepped to the window and looked out upon 
the night. There was mystery in that night, and 
witchery. There was moonlight, with its soft, clarify¬ 
ing rays bathing the rocky street below, even as it 
must be bathing the deck of a steamer. And there 
was Abner Gilvert in the moonlight. 

“Absolutely nothing, my dear girl,” was the nearest 
Garry could come to the past. “I only wanted to tell 
you that if the time should ever come when you feel 
that the whole world has gone wrong and that you 
haven’t any friends left, remember that I am still 
your . . . your devoted slave. . . .” 

Marcile laughed lightly. 

“Yes, I am happy to-night. I have been too happy 
for a long time to think of moody things. Let us talk 
of something cheerful. I remember how you called 
me your rainbow goddess, and how I was leading you 
both to a pot of gold. I have failed in that, I know, 
but tell me all about it.” 

So Garry sketched the condition in which they found 
themselves, explaining the financial situation in the 
south, the manner in which Doolittle had blocked them 
at every turn, and how the latter felt confident of win¬ 
ning because of his blow through Burton. 

“Doolittle is so certain he is going to win,” Garry 
concluded, “that he is now on his way north, on the 
same boat as Rupert, and they tell me he is bringing 
with him the engineers and equipment needed to com¬ 
mence actual construction on a railway.” 

As Garry told the story, he could see that Marcile 


224 


BLACK GOLD 


was quick to understand; and now she stepped for¬ 
ward and put her hand on his forehead with a sisterly 
caress. 

“Poor Hart, you are tired; it has been a hard fight. 
But tell me one thing. How much money must you 
get within the next few days to avoid failure ?” 

“About thirty thousand would do it, I fancy. 
Rupert borrowed fifty thousand from Burton, but all 
of it is not yet spent. And now that Doolittle has 
crowded Burton out, I presume he has Harne’s se¬ 
curity for the fifty thousand. That was a mortgage 
on his and my claims, and if we cannot come across at 
the end of the month, Doolittle closes down on us, and 
out we go. That is all there is to it.” 

“Why does that creature Doolittle persecute you 
so?” 

“Greed, perhaps. Malice, perhaps. Or again it may 
be just straight business.” 

Hot anger swept across Marcile’s youthful features. 

“Oh, I hate him. I hate him,” she exclaimed 
helplessly. 

“Hate is a dangerous thing, as useless as love. One 
does not always know the one from the other.” 

“Does not know love?” the girl cried incredulously, 
then swiftly she digressed, “but why is Doolittle not 
satisfied with his own claims?” 

“If one has a gold coin and the other has a silver, 
—it is the old story. Our claims are the best.” 

“And mine?” 

“Your claim, Marcile, is the second best of them 


THE NEW MARCILE 


225 


all. In recording them, Rupert gave you the one next 
the original claim, which takes in Old Maneto’s 
cabin. . . 

“And is it worth much money ?” she demanded. 

“Worth much? My dear girl, it is worth a fortune, 
in the right hands. In the wrong hands it is as useful 
as the North Pole.” 

“Then that, I suppose, is why my father, Abner 
Gilvert, has been trying to buy it from me. Do you 
know, Hart, he has offered me a hundred thousand. 
What do you think of that? What would it mean to 
you and to Rupert if I were to sell?” 

“It would be the last blow, that is all. It would 
finish us, unless we could prove they had a syndicate. 
Then, of course, we might get it back. But, Marcile, 
unless you want to bowl Rupert over entirely, don’t 
sell that claim.” 

A flush crept up from the girl’s throat until it dyed 
her face with the hue of youth. Then it centered to 
gleaming points in either cheek, and though she looked 
at the man fearlessly, Garry knew that it was the glow 
of shame and humiliation. 

“And it is my father who is helping to do this 
thing,” Marcile spoke slowly and measuredly, “help¬ 
ing to ruin you, who have made me all that I am?” 

“We will forget that,” Garry said quickly, acutely 
conscious that Marcile was no longer attempting to 
disown Gilvert, even in thought. 

“You may, but I cannot. Do you know, the first 
time he saw me, after I came back from the south, 


226 


BLACK GOLD 


he even threatened to kill you, said you had made him 
break some absurd oath about keeping me in the Indian 
camps. But I think he is over that now. At least I 
talked to him a long time and I hope I got him to see 
reason. Now, Hart, leave me to myself. Perhaps 
to-morrow we will go down to meet the steamer 
together/’ 

As Garry turned away, he saw that a frown had 
gathered above the dark arches of her brows. He 
fancied that over the somnolent warmth of her happi¬ 
ness there had blown a tang of the first, far-away 
threat of frost. In his helplessness to shield her from 
the blight which must so shortly strike at her youth, 
he clenched his hands savagely, and he reviled himself 
as all men revile their own weaknesses. 

While that mood was upon him, he met Abner Gil- 
vert. The latter was upon the stairway, climbing 
upward as Garry went down; and in that instant it 
seemed that Gilvert had become more than ever the 
symbol of the unscrupulous power which was crushing 
them. 

In an instant he flamed out at the man in anger. 

“You are looking for Marcile,” he exclaimed. 
“Well, take it from me, you had better treat that girl 
right.” 

The mockery which Gilvert concealed at times flashed 
to his parted lips. 

“Wonder of the universe,” he sneered. “In your 
great kindness, permit me to speak to my own child.” 
Then quickly Gilvert’s mood passed from sneering to 


THE NEW MARCILE 


227 


anger. “You have stepped between us,” he cried, 
“between me and the oath I made that the child 
Marcile should not be tainted with the world which 
has tainted such as you. But in spite of me, you have 
brought to her your own coarse civilization. Was she 
not good enough for you, that you must remake her? 
You have caused Abner Gil vert to break an oath, and 
that settles all claims between us. Now I swear it 
again— You will never take Marcile from me. I have 
come for her. She is mine. She will go back into 
my world, and I will account with the fool who tries 
to step between.” 

A fanatic light leaped into Gilvert’s eyes. Garry 
raised his hand to strike, and for an instant they stood 
there in tableau. 

“Strike, fool,” Gilvert cried out, “and let me end 
it.” 

With a swift movement, Gilvert’s hand jerked from 
his coat so that the lights from above glistened along 
a funnel of blue steel. For another instant they 
stood thus, then Gilvert stepped slowly past the younger 
man, up the narrow stairway. 

“Remember,” Gilvert spoke as he passed, “if I had 
not been a man of strong resolution I would have 
killed you before this. Every day you stay here, you 
tempt me more, and some day my will may weaken. I 
am going to see Marcile now, and ... I would finish 
you now for what you have done; but what does it 
matter? Your time is close now, and that will be the 
end of you.” 


228 


BLACK GOLD 


“You will never get a better chance,” Garry returned 
coldly, “for the next time I see you I will be packing 
a gun myself.” 

Gilvert made a movement as though to give way to 
his anger; then, with an effort, he continued his way 
up the stairs and turned into the room where Marcile 
stood alone. Marcile stood there, outlined beneath the 
dim light, with one hand still held across her fore¬ 
head in a puzzled way. 

“Why, Hart,” she began, without looking towards 
the man who had stepped into the room with so little 
ceremony. 

Then presently something sinister in the man’s 
silence, some unusual power emanating from his 
startling calm, caused Marcile to look up in a quick, 
frightened way. Her hands fell to her sides and her 
eyes grew narrow in doubt, yet without fear. 

“So it is you,” she added slowly, in a voice which 
carried no welcome. 

“Yes, it is your father,” Gilvert returned, with the 
mockery still upon his lips, “though you don’t seem 
particularly glad to see me.” 

Could Marcile have ruled her own destiny, she would 
not have had Abner Gilvert come to her yet, not until 
the softening tints of time had painted some of the 
harshness out of the new thoughts which had come 
to her. On the one side was Harne, the ideal, and 
Garry, the youth who had done so much for her. On 
the other side was Abner Gilvert, her father, at the 
root of all the evil which was being worked out upon 


THE NEW MARCILE 


229 

her friends. So the cleavage lay there before her, a 
cleavage between faith and duty. 

Her father; or her ideal? 

In that instant, while she stood looking upon him, 
all her past life rushed up before her. She thought 
of the many things this man had not done which a 
father should do for his daughter. She recalled the 
life of loneliness to which he had exiled her. 

Yet, after all, he was her father, and as such, was 
entitled to some of the love which she had never given 
to him. Perhaps she herself had been to blame. 

He was sterner now, more loveless, more sneering, 
than she had ever seen him before; so she sighed, and 
said to herself that it was a poor way for Abner Gil vert 
to come to her now. 

But, seen through his eyes, she had been in the camp 
of the enemy. Well, she would look through his eyes, 
and seeing the past from that perspective, she would 
learn, perhaps, the viewpoint of Abner Gilvert. So 
with this thought, Marcile’s hardness melted, and she 
grew more compassionate towards him than she had 
felt for many months; and when the mental daze drifted 
from her brain she found that she could speak more 
kindly than a few minutes ago she had believed 
possible. 

“Yes, father,” she said evenly, “I am glad to see 
you. And I am sorry if anything has come between 
us.” 

Her voice caught slightly; but to that Abner Gilvert 
paid no heed. 


230 


BLACK GOLD 


“Sorry ?” he mocked. “That looked like sorrow, 
didn’t it, to see you meeting that young fool who would 
ruin me if he could. . . 

“What can I do?” Marcile faltered. “What do you 
want me to do, to show that I am sorry for the 
present?” 

Gilvert stepped towards her eagerly, and his hand 
darted out to rest upon her shoulder. 

“Fine trumpery,” he sneered, as he handled the gar¬ 
ment roughly, “but we’ll try to forget that. What 
can you do? There is plenty you can do if you will 
only try. If your schooling had taught you any clever¬ 
ness . . . But no, it hasn’t. I know it hasn’t, and that 
you will not try.” 

“What is it? What can I do?” Marcile pleaded, in 
a sudden consciousness of long-delayed duty. 

Abner Gilvert turned to pace the room rapidly, and 
his fingers were clenched convulsively. 

“What is the use?” he cried. “Two years ago, had 
I asked you a little thing, you would have done it. 
But now . . . And yet you wonder when I curse those 
men who caused the change in you, the men who robbed 
me of your love!” 

Blinded for the moment by filial remorse, Marcile 
saw only the tragedy of Gilvert’s anger; and so a 
wave of self-revilement swept over her, of pity, and re¬ 
morse. She stepped closer and took the man’s face 
between her hands, as she had not done for many years. 

“You have not told me what it is,” she whispered, 
a world of regret in her voice. 


THE NEW MARCILE 


231 


“Then I will. It is simple. Change your attitude 
and go back to the Chitina; but before you do that, 
you can sell your claim.” 

“The second claim?” Marcile faltered, as her lips 
went white. 

“Certainly. You don’t owe anything to that hound 
Harne. Besides, a hundred thousand is a nice pile for 
a girl like you. That is what Doo . . . er, I can offer 
for it.” 

Through the struggle of her emotions, there was one 
thing which came to Marcile with insistent clarity. 

“Why do you offer such a sum?” she demanded. 
“You know better than I that the claim may not be 
worth it.” 

“Of course it isn’t worth it, not now, but I’m do¬ 
ing it because I’m looking out for your interests. 
We’re going to get the claim anyway, and I wouldn’t 
hector you about it now if I didn’t love you enough to 
want you to feather your nest.” 

Marcile’s glance wavered, and she fell to folding and 
unfolding her gown aimlessly. 

“I don’t know,” the girl murmured. “Let me 
think. . . ” 

“Perhaps you will know better to-morrow,” Gilvert 
laughed coarsely, “to-morrow, after the Sitka boat 
comes in.” 

Marcile caught the meaning back of the words, and 
she looked up quickly; but before she could reply, 
Gilvert went on truculently, 

“Yes, to-morrow, after you have seen the girl who 


232 


BLACK GOLD 


has come with Harne from the east, the one he liked 
well enough to meet in Seattle. . . 

Marcile’s face flashed with a mixture of fire and un¬ 
belief. 

“. . . Yes, to-morrow, when you remember that 
Rupert Harne has not seen you for nearly a year, and 
when you find that he has forgotten all he ever did 
know of you. . . 

“I do not believe it,” Marcile exclaimed. 

Abner Gilvert, seeing the conviction in the girl's 
manner, laughed roughly. 

“Such is the way of the world, and such is the habit 
of men! Such it has always been since life began,” 
he mocked. “Always it has been the right of men to 
break the hearts and the lives of women, and doubt¬ 
less it will always be the same until the end of 
time. . . .” 

“What do you mean?” the girl interposed, with a 
flash of anger. 

“Nothing at all, my dear child,” Gilvert replied with 
a glance of pity, “except that I was trying to save you 
from a rude awakening. Disillusionment has always 
been the right of youth, so to-morrow, after t'he Sitka 
boat comes in and you have been properly disillusioned, 
remember that offer I have made for your claim. 
Women have suffered meekly, too many of them; but 
you, Marcile, I fancy will not. . . .” 

As the girl turned away in anger and fear, Abner 
Gilvert laughed to himself softly; then he went quietly 
down the stairs into the night. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


GILVERT’S PROOF 

While the Sitka steamer was still no more than a 
black smudge of smoke upon the horizon of the Sound, 
men came down to the wharf and went away again, 
anxiously nervous. For Abner Gilvert had spread 
the news that the big capitalists were coming. 

When Marcile stepped into an unusual hum of 
citizenry, she found keenness and gladness upon the 
features of many. She stood for a long time watch¬ 
ing the animated faces, alight now with a new am¬ 
bition; and because of her own joy she was glad for 
them. She rejoiced in their coming prosperity, be¬ 
cause her own life was too full for anything but glad¬ 
ness. It shone from her eyes. It glowed from her 
cheeks. It came to her round red lips when she looked 
out toward the sea. 

Marcile was neatly garbed, as tastefully as the skill 
of the south could teach her, and she thought with 
pride of the change wrought in the uncouth child who 
once had donned the drab, cast-off garments of a white 
woman. And now she was going to one who would 
understand. 

Through the trooping of citizens came Abner Gil¬ 
vert, hurrying down the highway. 

He paused, conscious of the girl’s fascination, and 
233 


2 34 


BLACK GOLD 


his glance roved from the tips of her neat shoes to the 
sparkle in her glowing eyes. 

“Even as the foolish bride goes forth decked for 
the altar/’ he laughed. “Are you coming to see the 
woman from the east?” 

Gilvert hurried on; and a moment later Garry came 
by, moody as when he left her the night before. As 
she stepped beside him, Marcile fancied he looked upon 
her pityingly. But she took his arm and pressed it in 
comradeship, and as they finally threaded their way to 
the quay, the steamer was docking. On the deck, 
looking critically and superciliously over the tangling 
of humanity below them, were two men. 

“The younger is Doolittle, the man you have heard 
so much about,” Garry informed. 

“And the stout man?” 

“Why, that is Pellinger, Swedevaris Pellinger.” 

“I never heard of him. You speak as though I 
had.” 

Before Garry could reply, a third man crossed from 
the upper cabin to the promenade deck, and by his side 
was a woman whose type Marcile had learned to know, 
but not to love, during her training in the south. The 
woman, Marcile could see at a glance, was expensively 
garbed, yet not as tastefully as herself. Upon her 
features was a look of ennui, the bored surfeit of life, 
as though the paltry ambitions of mankind, and above 
all the crude strivings of the throng she now gazed 
upon, wearied her unspeakably. Marcile saw the 
woman draw her shapely skirts about her closely, as 


GILVERT’S PROOF 


235 


though shrinking from all contact with that motley 
humanity . . . the humanity which Marcile herself 
had come back to love . . . and cast a protesting look 
upon the man. Yet Marcile knew it to be less a pro¬ 
test than it was an appeal for protection, for in it was 
the only spark of animation in the woman’s whole 
attitude. It was a look such as Marcile had never seen 
before, but which her heart taught her to understand 
with unfaltering instinct. Back to her mind there 
raced the taunt of Abner Gilvert, her father’s un¬ 
believable lie which had now come true. 

For the man up there was Rupert Harne, the woof 
of her ideal; and the woman . . . 

Marcile’s fingers clenched Garry’s arm until he 
winced beneath their pressure. He saw the pallor 
upon her lips, the courageous uplift of the head, the 
widening of the girl’s nostrils, the wild, almost in¬ 
credulous appeal which came into her eyes, the demand 
for refutal in the glance she bent upon him. At that 
instant, Edith Pellinger went to her father’s side, while 
Harne could be seen making his way slowly to the 
gangplank. 

“Come, we will meet him,” Garry suggested en¬ 
couragingly; and as he pressed through the crowd, 
the girl’s hand dropped from his arm. Garry, in that 
moment, did not notice. He was thinking of Marcile’s 
appearance. He was proud of her new beauty, of her 
flashes of passion, of the change which he had helped 
to make in her, of the surprise he had kept for Harne 
through the summer. 


BLACK GOLD 


236 

Garry was nervously eager to see the amazement 
which must spring to his companion’s eyes. For he 
was telling himself that surely, with the new Marcile 
before him, Harne would see the folly of his old 
bondage to Edith Pellinger. 

So Garry pressed through the crowds, and as Harne 
stepped to the dock, he grasped his hand eagerly. 

“Well, Rupe, old friends meet you first,” he ex¬ 
claimed. “Shake with our pal of the Chitina Valley.” 

There was astonishment upon Harne’s features, but 
not of the variety for which Garry had looked. 

“Interesting,” Harne replied, as his glance roved 
past the other’s shoulder, “but I do not get my eyes 
on anybody I know.” 

Garry glanced swiftly into the crowd; but there 
was no Marcile. 

That in itself told the first story of her pain; it 
told, as well, that there was still left in Marcile much 
of the instinct of the animal which bears its suffering 
alone. She could not, she dare not, face Rupert Harne 
in that moment when another woman had looked upon 
him with the lights of possession in her eyes. And 
that was one part of the child of the Nootkas which 
remained in the Marcile of the south. 

But Harne was looking at him strangely now; so 
Garry replied with a forced laugh. 

“Tom Harlow was there a minute ago,” he lied cheer¬ 
fully, “but it is ju&t like him to get lost in the crowd.” 

Harne still stared through a moment of wonder. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


WHEN ANGER YIELDS 

Marcile fled with but one thought branding itself 
into her burning brain—her heart had played with her 
falsely, her instinct had faltered. The one desire 
which possesed her was that she must have the relief 
of physical action. 

This was the first test of her civilization, and before 
it all her grace seemed to have fallen as a loosened gar¬ 
ment. Marcile’s steps led her as one who gropes 
through darkness for the light which is not. She 
was again the child, hemmed in the valleys by the 
pitiless hills, the child who had reached up arms and 
who had cried aloud to the great God of the outer 
world, and who in the end had gone home unanswered. 

So Marcile followed the highway of Valdez, be¬ 
cause it was an upward one and satisfied some of her 
craving for violence. Out there, at the end of the 
highway, were the hard hills which had nursed her 
childhood; and they were calling to her again with 
their manifold tongues of crudity. For she knew it 
was only there, after she had climbed and climbed, 
and worn off the first keen edge of her anger, that 
she would judge herself and Rupert Harne. 

Past the highway of Valdez, Marcile climbed into 
237 


238 


BLACK GOLD 


the foothills with the vigor of a wild young animal. 
Already she could feel the keener air blowing away her 
first unreasoning passion. She could see again the 
sneer which had coarsened the features of her father, 
Abner Gilvert; she could see the pity in Garry’s 
hesitating glance; yet when she saw once more the 
gesture of possession with which that strange woman 
of the east dominated the man upon the boat, all 
her anger rushed back with its old-time turbulence. 

Now the first deadening sting was leaving her 
wound, and in its place there was coming the biting 
stabs of consciousness. Forgetful that she had been 
the child, Marcile remembered only that the caress 
of Rupert Harne had been warm upon her lips, that 
the light of his eyes had seemed for her alone. 

She paused upon a spur which ran out to the sea, 
and in all the time of her feverish climb she did not 
see the man who followed her as doggedly as her own 
shadow. Nor did she see him now. 

Marcile gazed out across the sea and thought of 
the wound which had come to her. 

To strike back? 

That was the animal instinct, the human passion. 
At first she shrank from that thought; then she re¬ 
membered that here she was alone, where she might 
play with her emotions and say that she would strike 
back. In the mere saying of it, there might be some 
relief from that anger which was gripping her, but 
which anger she knew she must master in the end. 
Here, with none but the sky and the sea and the air 


WHEN ANGER YIELDS 


239 


to look upon her weakness, she could give vent to all 
that mad impulse to wound, as she herself had been 
wounded. So shortly she fell to wondering how she 
might hurt the man as he had hurt her. 

At length Marcile sprang to her feet. Yes, there 
was a way, and she had heard it from the lips of 
Hartley Garry. Some of the terror of the girl’s pur¬ 
pose flashed from her eyes as she looked relentlessly 
out across the sea. She turned, with a gesture of 
finality, a gesture meant not for herself even, but 
meant only for the sky and the sea, a gesture which 
for the moment marked the high triumph of anger. . . . 

There, before her, was the man Abner Gilvert, her 
father. 

Marcile stared as though the spirit of her anger had 
leaped into human form, and for a long time she stood 
thus, gazing more upon what the man typified than 
upon the man himself. It was an unfortunate moment 
that Gilvert should stand before her now, at a time 
when she had hoped to be alone, when she had thought 
to give leash to her anger, and then to master it in 
the end. 

But there was Abner Gilvert, come at a moment when 
anger had triumphed; and to the girl it seemed that 
he was but the link between her desire to strike and 
the way thereto. 

“Poor child,” Gilvert murmured, with that soft ac¬ 
cent of pity which no man should use towards a woman 
in moments such as these. 

Marcile’s only answer was a pathetic outward thrust 


BLACK GOLD 


240 

of her arms, which seemed but a plea for forgiveness. 

“Poor child,” he murmured again, “I am sorry. 
Sorry that it had to be. I tried to spare you. I only 
tried to be cruel, that I might make it easier for you 
in the end.” 

Again Marcile’s anger cried out that here was the 
weapon with which she must strike. And a weapon 
thrust into one’s hand when it is not wanted may be 
a dangerous thing. 

“It has hurt,” the man continued softly, insinuat¬ 
ingly. “A man has hurt a woman. In this land there 
is a code which says that when a man has hurt a 
woman, the man too must suffer. Will you not let 
me be the means, Marcile? It is my way to make up 
for what I should have done long ago.” 

The blaze in her eyes was the girl’s answer; yet 
behind it there was inquiry. 

“It is my right,” Gilvert added. 

“And it is my will,” Marcile cried with some of 
her earlier crudity. “But how?” 

“How?” Gilvert’s voice raised slightly. “Surely 
Marcile knows the way to independence.” 

For an instant that insinuation did not reach the 
girl’s brain, but when at last it touched, it found root 
there as a weed in fertile soil. Again Gilvert repeated 
his words. 

“A hundred thousand is a tidy pile for a girl 
like you, Marcile.” 

Again there came to Marcile’s mind the words which 
Garry had spoken, words which told her that it was 


WHEN ANGER YIELDS 


241 


through her mining claim that Harne could be most 
injured. Marcile abruptly found herself wondering 
if that strange woman would have any use for a pau¬ 
per, if she would look upon Harne in defeat as she had 
looked at him while they stood together upon the deck 
of the Sitka steamer. 

As the girl turned towards Gilvert, there was a firm 
coldness in her manner. 

“I will do it,” she said clearly. “Who buys? You, 
or . . 

“Doolittle. I am merely his agent. That is not 
supposed to be known. It wouldn’t do us any good if 
it became generally known, but now that you are on 
our side, Marcile, it doesn’t matter. I will arrange 
it so you can get your money at once.” 

In answer, Marcile thrust her hand in the hollow 
of the man’s arm, and together they began the down¬ 
ward climb. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


BACK TO THE PRIMITIVE 

The blow was struck, but Marcile no longer felt 
that keen desire for action. The reflex was setting in, 
but this, she told herself, was no more than an idle 
curiosity to see how the man must wince. 

The instinct of the wild had risen up, and engulfed 
her in the waves of its emotion, had taken of her heart 
and her fibre; and now she was waiting calmly, count¬ 
ing the days which lay between Rupert Harne and ruin. 
The steamer had arrived on a Tuesday. Then, from 
what Garry had told her, Harne had until Friday be¬ 
fore his ruin came. And it would be ruin; for had 
not Ramsey Doolittle come north to be dramatic in his 
triumph ? 

Because of the news which had spread, there was a 
festive spirit running through the blood of Valdez. 
Yet through it all was one who walked with head erect 
and with heart seemingly undaunted. But Marcile, 
who saw Harne come and go, believed her instinct 
could read through his outward courage and see there 
the shadow of defeat. At times there were little lines 
about his eyes which could mean nothing less. She 
fancied that he, too, must be counting the hours before 
the crash came, and because he still held his head 
242 


BACK TO THE PRIMITIVE 


243 


high before the world and refused to show a broken 
spirit, she was not compassionate. The girl told her¬ 
self time and again that there remained now in her 
heart only the desire to keep on hurting, as she herself 
had been hurt. 

So Marcile walked the highway of Valdez and tried 
to catch its thrill. Yet she found something missing; 
and it was while searching her heart for that elusive 
key that she met Hartley Garry. Garry, she fancied, 
looked at her in a pitying way, yet as he spoke, his 
voice was brisk enough. 

“Rupe has asked to see you, Marcile,” he said, “the 
only chance is this evening; he is going away in the 
morning.” 

There was something strange in Garry's words which 
left the girl silent. 

“He only heard about you being here, through gos¬ 
sip. I am sorry, Marcile; sorry for everything. I 
could not help it; yet perhaps it was my fault. I have 
known all along about the woman from the east, and 
yet I could not tell you. I tried, but I could not.” 

Marcile walked at his side in silence, with glance 
fixed upon the far-off slumbering hills which had been 
her mothering arms, which had held her and rocked her 
in violence, which had raised her aloft, which had cast 
her down into the prison-like valleys, which had torn 
her soul and left her fearing. She looked upon the 
hills, with never a thought for the passing joy of 
Valdez; and then she thought of the darkness in the 
bright valley of the Chitina. 


244 


BLACK GOLD 


“You mean that you knew about her before . . . 
before you found me?” 

Garry nodded. 

“He goes to-morrow morning. Where?” 

“I do not know. Beaubien called. His music raved 
last night like one whose soul had gone mad.” 

Silence again, while tiny clouds stole up beyond the 
rims of the moutains until they took on the shapes of 
cabins, Nootka cabins, by the river’s edge. Harsh 
cabins, crude, where life is direct, and oft-times violent 
in more ways than the physical. And perhaps by this 
time she would have been caught in its violence, in its 
inescapable snare; for she was a woman now. 

Then they came to the hills which ran out to the 
sea, and all the growing joy of Valdez was behind 
them. There was the whispering voice of waves upon 
the shore, there was the crooning song of the cradling 
hills; and there was in the heart of Marcile a great 
emptiness and longing. 

“Please, Hart, leave me now,” she barely whispered. 

So he looked into her eyes for a moment, eyes which 
were firm, but full of pain; and abruptly he saw her 
again as she had been when a child, when the prisoning 
hills had chained her; and in that instant he wondered 
if it would have been better to have left her in the 
hands of barbarity. 

“You will let me come for you to-night?” he asked; 
and Marcile nodded her head swiftly and turned her 
eyes to the sea. 

When Marcile came down once more from the hills 


BACK TO THE PRIMITIVE 


245 


behind Valdez there was a strained smile upon her 
lips; and later, when Garry found her at her doorway, 
his eyes traveled from her face to the tips of her 
shoes and back again with a touch of dismay. 

For in spite of the darkness, there was some subtle 
change in Marcile. At first it was almost indescrib¬ 
able. It was a flash of all things primitive and ele¬ 
mental, something to be felt rather than seen through 
the darkness. 

About Marcile's shoulders there was a long cloak, 
hiding all but the tips of her footgear; yet it was some 
indefinite transition in the girl's manner which caused 
Garry to pause in wonder. It was as though some 
of Marcile’s civilization had slipped from her during 
those moments she communed with her rugged mother 
who was the giant hills. 

Looking more closely, the change was visible. 
Marcile no longer wore her hair in the rolls she had 
learned in the south; instead, it dropped low and close 
to her face in the style of the northern women, and 
it parted in two long, glistening braids which were 
caught up and twisted into a formless pyramid at 
the back. 

It was the type of the Nootka, and as Garry looked 
at that face, stripped of all its embellishments of civi¬ 
lization, a daring admiration leaped to his eyes. His 
was a long, slow gaze which grew in its intensity, 
until Garry believed he could read through the human 
flesh into the soul, and find there the tempestuous pur¬ 
pose of the girl which had caused her to forsake all 


246 


BLACK GOLD 


that was artificial, and to fall back upon the weapon of 
crudity. 

Marcile saw that he knew, and a flash of the old 
fire sprang to her eyes. 

“Ain’t you likin’ me none?” she asked in her old, 
crude way. 

Garry shook a puzzled head. 

Was it to test Harne, or was it to punish him the 
more? 

Then, before she passed up the stairway to meet 
Harne, Marcile dropped the erectness of her carriage 
and the dainty dignity of step. Her shoulders thrust 
slightly forward, as did the forms of those girls of 
her earlier life who had already matured into the 
bearers of burdens. Yet there was no shrinking in 
her manner. There was rather the bold and flagrant 
abandon of the north which besets some like the 
curse of ignorance. 

Harne was waiting for them, in a room where the 
rays of the oil-lamp reached out but feebly. 

There came a swishing sound as the cloak slipped 
from Marcile’s shoulders to the floor; and then for a 
time there was silence all about them. There was 
silence and calm, except for the start of amazement 
which came to Harne’s eyes, the clenching of the 
fingers, the opening of voiceless lips which closed 
again, the quick, impulsive sweep of the hand as it 
brushed his forehead and seemed to be thrusting aside 
the dreams of the past. 


BACK TO THE PRIMITIVE 


247 

Then out of the silence Harne spoke, slowly, 
measuredly. 

“So this is Marcile, the little brown goddess who 
led us to the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow, 
and who in the end has become a power in the north, 
a maker and breaker of men?” 

He stepped forward and took the girl’s unresisting 
hand. 

“Pm guessin’ I ain’t done nothing but look after 
myself,” Marcile returned, with high-toned laughter. 

With the shedding of her cloak, the silks and fash¬ 
ions of the south had fallen from her as a tree sheds 
its halo of green. She stood forth in the garments 
of the Nootkas, rough, uncouth, yet with a certain 
clinging grace, emblematical of her inherent refine¬ 
ment. Thus arrayed, Marcile’s beauty was poignantly 
appealing. It was so glowingly impulsive with the 
tang of the earth, yet so sharply reminding Harne of 
his broken promise to himself to place this wild flower 
in the gardens of training, that if ever he had felt 
resentment because of the blow she struck, it melted 
now in a wave of remorse. 

He had allowed Marcile, to whom he owed whatever 
ray of good fortune had crossed his pathway, to grow 
into young womanhood uncultured and uncared for. 

Now, before him, was the penalty of his own neglect. 
Every mark of the girl’s uncouthness, every garb of 
her uncivilization, had suddenly become to him a re¬ 
proach. What he had experienced in the North had 


248 


BLACK GOLD 


been only the inevitable cycle of nature running its 
own course, and which had now come back to punish 
him. 

Once more Harne looked into the brown eyes of 
the girl whose lips had been warm upon his own. He 
saw there a challenge which was not the challenge of 
the wild, but which was some far-off ineffable essence 
coming to him like the breath of springtime. Abruptly 
he leaned forward, so that his eyes were meeting hers. 

“What a fool I have been, Marcile,” he exclaimed, 
with a low gasping of the breath. 

Whatever Marcile may have looked for, it was not 
remorse, or contrition, such as lay there in the man’s 
manner. 

“I’m guessin’ I don’t know what you mean,” she 
returned evasively. 

“I am afraid there are a lot of things which none 
of us understand, in time,” he returned, and Marcile 
winced at the words. 

“I’m hearin’ yer goin’ away purty soon,” she went 
on, in her old jargon. “Hart said some old Beaubien 
was takin’ you off there, thinkin’ you’d found some¬ 
thing. Well, you can let me tell you, you ain’t goin’ 
to find nothin’.” 

With cold deliberation Marcile made her speech 
gratingly ignorant, thinking to see the man shrink 
from her. His shrinking she could have forgiven; 
but Harne did not draw back. Instead, it seemed 
that the girl’s crudeness only reproached him the more 
for his neglect, only made him regret all the more 


BACK TO THE PRIMITIVE 


249 

that the opportunity was so soon to slip from him to 
do for her what he should have done long ago. 

“That does not matter. It is only for a day; but 
whether I win or lose . . . Marcile, oh, Marcile. 
. . . How life has wronged you!” 

In that moment, there was understanding in Harne’s 
words; there was a flash in Marcile’s eyes which whis¬ 
pered that she was more than the Nootka; and there 
was the quick catching of Garry’s indrawn breath. 
Perhaps, after all, the North would care for her own. 

Then from behind them came the rustling of silken 
garments. A woman came into the light, and she 
stood there, looking calmly upon the scene. 

Anger was in Garry’s heart; for this woman was 
coming between them again, as she had done before. 
And yet what a picture she made, that daughter of 
Swedevaris Pellinger, with the clinging grace of the 
hothouse vine in her every posture; and what a con¬ 
trast with the daughter of the Chitina! 

It was like sharp sunshine clashing with the vio¬ 
lence of snow-clad hills. 

Garry swung about. Perhaps even yet he could 
divert the attention of this conservatory flower; per¬ 
haps he could stir up for her a sudden warmth of 
emotion which would leave her cold to the scene about 
her. 

But no; she was already watching Marcile, with 
the passing interest of one who reads of the follies 
of others. 

“Who is that wild young thing?” Edith Pellinger 


250 


BLACK GOLD 


asked Garry in a whisper which carried to every cor¬ 
ner of the room. “I suppose it has something to do 
with the mine, but I wish Rupert wouldn’t talk to 
such people.” 

Garry did not answer; and the woman probably 
did not even notice his struggle for self-control. 

“I wish Rupert would give up that mine,” she 
hurried on. “It is foolish to go on trying to fight 
father and Doolittle in that way. I will be glad when 
Friday comes, for then it will be all over, and Rupert 
and I can start living our own life again. This North 
is very pretty, and all that, to look at, at this time 
of the year; but the sooner Rupert is compelled to 
forget it, the sooner we will be able to find happiness 
in the south.” 

“Don’t you like men who fight?” Garry asked. 

“Not when they don’t need to fight. I do not care 
for stubbornness. Just to think, except for Rupert’s 
obstinacy, this coal mine might have been running by 
this time, and he might have been secretary or some¬ 
thing else of importance in the company.” 

Garry laughed unpleasantly. 

“Stubbornness,” he remarked, “is not peculiar to 
any one individual. Except for other people’s ob¬ 
stinacy, Rupert and I could have had our just rights 
long ago. Your feeling towards stubborn men is the 
same as mine towards the usurper. You are willing 
to see Rupert broken because of a foolish whim that 
this land isn’t polished enough to suit you. But re- 


BACK TO THE PRIMITIVE 


251 


member this, Miss Pellinger, you break Rupert with 
his mine, and you break his heart at the same time. ,, 

The girl's eyes grew wider, studiously so ; and when 
she had looked Garry calmly over through an uncom¬ 
fortable moment, she laughed easily. 

“Nonsense. When Doolittle and Pellinger get 
through with him, he will be ready to marry riches. 
Cold, isn't it? . . . Come, Rupert, you have seen 
enough of that wild young thing. If there is any¬ 
thing she wants, give it to her. I am so happy now 
that I can be charitable to others, no matter what 
their sin. . . 

A flush came to Garry's cheeks; and when Marcile 
turned about to face them, the brown eyes were elec¬ 
tric, and there was in her heart a prompting to revert 
to the type of the north which knows only crudeness 
and violence. Those clinging garments upon the 
woman’s form! They would make music in the ears 
when rent between cold fingers; and the bare, white 
shoulder. ... A livid welt upon it would, perhaps, 
carry the message of a vital life through the languid 
atmosphere of Edith Pellinger. 

Superficial, like the perfume of the flower which is 
wafted into nothingness by the whisperings of the 
breeze. And it was that product of the south, that 
artificial creation of beauty and languorous wealth 
which Rupert Harne had loved in the very moment 
when his false lips had been hot upon her own. 

To forget civilization and all its teachings would 


252 


BLACK GOLD 


be a balm; to remember only the crudeness of the 
north, to leap to the whip of its laws ... to feel the 
rending of silken garments beneath the hard fingers, 
to sense the cringing of flesh which trembles . . . ! 

Darkened anger, as well, upon Harne’s face. 

In that darkness was bitterness; in it was no trace 
of love for the woman who had spoken so cruelly, 
who had struck where no blow was needed, where no 
person fought back. 

A great calm came suddenly upon Marcile’s soul. 
Was it that, perhaps, which Hartley Garry had wished 
her to see? 

So she did not even wince when Harne turned away 
at Edith Pellinger’s call and waited calmly while she 
thrust her arm behind his with a gesture of possession. 

Garry watched, and behind Harne’s passive yielding 
he fancied the first real flame of the fires of rebellion. 


CHAPTER XXX 


WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES 

A single coal-oil lamp, bracketed to the wall, shed 
in sufficient light over the scene as Parks shrank back 
into the shadows like an animal that has been driven 
to shelter. His eyes were dull with obstinacy, his 
figure was unimpressive, yet tense with hostility. 

Some feet distant, facing him so that the light shone 
upon their faces, were two men. 

“Parks, it is that fearful temper which has ruined 
you/’ Doolittle spoke critically. “You seem to have 
forgotten that in the north it is the fate of the weaker 
to serve the strong. Had you behaved like a gentle¬ 
man we would have done the handsome thing by you > 
but now . . 

Ramsey Doolittle sighed, and he stared through the 
curtained window towards the silvery pathway which 
the moon was making across the sea. 

“. . . but now, Abner, what do you think would 
happen to a land agent who deceives his government 
by falsifying returns?” 

Gilvert’s laugh came with open relish. 

“Fifteen years, I’d say.” 

“Fifteen years with one’s friends is not long,” 
Parks’ voice came with a vitality slightly unnerving 
253 


254 


BLACK GOLD 


to men who had know him only as the cringer; and 
when they looked more closely it was not difficult 
to detect a gleam like insanity flashing from the eyes. 

Doolittle sat erect, and his head, thrust forward, 
became bullet-like and massive. 

“Stop this damned fooling, Parks,” he rasped. “A 
man is a fool to talk that way. ...” 

“Not when he has the proofs.” 

Silence for a time, while the far-off murmur of 
the ocean came to them like a voice deadened with 
sorrow, while the moon blinked and peered, and pried 
its way past the drawn blinds as though wondering 
at the passions of mankind in a land where the ele¬ 
ments alone are tragedy enough for the world. 

Rebellion in little Parks! 

“And you know what are the proofs.” 

Parks was calmer now, as though realizing for the 
first time in his life that he had the whip-hand upon 
others who were stronger and more mighty than he. 
Courage was stealing back into his veins; though he 
did not like that cold flicking of the ash from the ciga¬ 
rette in the hands of Ramsey Doolittle. 

“Well, where are they?” Doolittle’s voice was 
calm, obviously restrained. 

“That is my affair,” said Parks. 

Suddenly Abner Gilvert leaned forward, to place a 
heavy hand upon Doolittle’s shoulder; then he jerked 
his thumb towards Parks. 

“The proofs are in two places,” he said, in a harsh 


WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES 


255 

whisper. “In that safe, and ... in that stubborn 
mule’s head.” 

Through the seconds, Gilvert’s eyes clung to those of 
Ramsey Doolittle with a gaze full of meaning; and 
in the end the civilized type turned his face away. 

“I have heard the story of dead men and the tales 
they don’t tell,” Gilvert’s whisper was still harsh and 
pregnant with ill-concealed fire. 

“And you have tried it before.” 

The anger and the weakness seemed to have fallen 
from Parks’ manner; and in their place had come 
some of the zeal of the fanatic. He was standing now, 
leaning forward, with weak chin out-thrust in the cause 
of sacrifice; and when Doolittle caught that pose, he 
turned swiftly to glance at Abner Gilvert. 

Passion upon the countenance of Abner Gilvert; 
and watching thus, Doolittle came in time to fancy 
that Gilvert’s fear of the future was greater than his 
own had been. 

Through a long, slow minute he looked from Gilvert 
to Parks, and back again. Two men before him now, 
knowing something of his secret ways, when one was 
quite enough. 

Two men. . . . either of whom might ruin him. 
A slow, meditative whistle escaped his pursed lips. 

“So, Gilvert,” he suggested confidentially, “you did 
not tell me that. You did not tell me how well you 
know that dead men tell no tales. . . .” 

“Must I tell you all my sins? You’ve enough of 


256 


BLACK GOLD 


your own to keep you awake nights.” Gilvert’s 
manner was half cringing, half venomous towards the 
man he owned as master. 

“. . . No wonder Parks has come to feel that he is 
due to some consideration,” Doolittle went on, un¬ 
heeding the interruption. “He has a right to feel that 
he is something of a power among us. It was quite 
plain, the moment we came here to-night, that Parks 
had altogether too much confidence. And now it de¬ 
velops that he knows too much for somebody’s safety. 
It is that which gave him confidence. I knew, Gilvert, 
that he didn’t have anything on me, so I couldn’t un¬ 
derstand it. But now, it seems so much plainer. . . .” 

Gilvert sprang to his feet. His great talon-like 
hands reached out towards Parks, whose courage of 
mind was not great enough to hide the shrinking of 
the body. Gilvert’s hands were upon him, when Doo¬ 
little waved him into submission. 

“Not yet,” he spoke with the suavity of a man who 
handles a business deal and nothing more, “though 
it really is a matter between you men. There are 
certain proofs of fraudulent claim-grabbing in Parks’ 
possession; and Parks seems to know, as well, of some 
past crime of Gilvert’s. But really the whole thing 
doesn’t interest me, except that I must have whatever 
papers may be connected with the claims. No doubt 
you can arrange it in some way. Parks may come to 
me in the morning, or the morning after, it does not 
matter which, and tell me who Gilvert murdered . . . 
or Gilvert may come with the papers in his hands. 


WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES 


257 

Who knows? It is a matter which you can arrange 
between you. . . 

There was a cold finality in Doolittle’s manner, an 
aloofness which could not be mistaken. He had 
spoken barbed words, which could carry but the one 
meaning . . . that of two men standing before him, 
one was too many. 

For a time Gil vert and Parks, the strong and the 
weak, looked into each other’s face, and they found 
there the message that one must die. To each, life, 
with its ambitions, however sordid, had suddenly be¬ 
come a sweet, delirious thing. 

Slowly, Gilvert moved forward. 

Then, savagely, primitively, inexorably as the first 
animal struck down its first victim upon the first day 
of creation, the flame of life sprang uppermost in the 
brain of Abner Gilvert. 

The massive hands reached over and drew Parks 
towards him, and as Doolittle watched the battle and 
the despair which his verdict had brought upon his 
fellows, he stepped over quietly and tightened the shade 
before the window. Then he went and leaned with 
his elbow upon Parks’ desk, as one quite indifferent to 
the passions of all other men. Ramsey Doolittle lit 
a cigarette with cold carelessness, and as he did so, 
he saw the muscles draw tightly in Gilvert’s arms; he 
saw as well the shiver of contortion which passed 
through Parks’ frame. He saw the lights of courage 
which had at last come to the weaker, and almost for 
an instant he wished that the end might be otherwise. 


258 


BLACK GOLD 


Closer and closer Gilvert was drawing his victim, 
with the cold cruelty of the animal which crushes the 
life of its prey, and in the eyes of the man there was no 
compassion. 

Ramsey Doolittle turned fastidiously away. 

Behind him he heard a dull scream which was sick¬ 
ening to the senses, then all was silent except for the 
heavy scraping of feet and the quick gasping of 
breath. Why should he, Ramsey Doolittle, of the 
elite of the east, be submitted to this vulgarity? 

“I am going now,” he said quite clearly, and his 
voice sounded sharply through the unnatural silence. 

Even as he spoke, there came a rattle like hail upon 
the window, and a woman’s voice cried out. Gilvert’s 
clenched fingers loosened their strangling hold as he 
threw Parks from him. 

Again the woman’s voice sounded, more imperious; 
and Doolittle glanced towards the two whose battle 
for existence had been broken. Parks was lying half- 
dazed in the corner, beneath the shade of the lamp, 
wetting his swollen lips with his tongue, his eyes glar¬ 
ing upon the window to see to whom he owed his life. 
From Gilvert’s features the passion and the struggle 
were already vanishing, as one smoothes the folds from 
a wrinkled cloth. As Doolittle saw this, he wondered 
if, after all, Parks would not be the safer to let live. 
But he merely dragged the agent to his chair, then he 
whispered thickly, 

“This pause can make no difference in the end. One 


WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES 


259 

of you will come to me to-morrow, or the day after, 
with that which I must have.” 

Doolittle turned with elaborate nonchalance towards 
the window, drew the blind aside, raised the sash and 
peered out into the night. Before him stood Edith 
Pellinger and her father. 

“We have been looking for you everywhere,” Edith 
complained. “The store was locked up, but we saw this 
light.” 

“That is really fine of you/’ Doolittle mumbled. 

“Mr. Gilvert promised to tell me that story of the 
North to-night,” the girl went on, “and while I am 
waiting for something to drive away the tedium, you 
take Mr. Gilvert away.” 

“Business, ma chere arnie” Doolittle returned 
lightly. “Ah, Pellinger, we have been straightening 
out the last kink in our plans. I think, Swede, we can 
start on Saturday morning. Get your cables ready to 
wire for supplies.” 

Pellinger shrugged his shoulders, and in that gesture 
were the marks of the age which was creeping upon 
him. His laugh was hollow, and his pride in achieve¬ 
ment was febrile. 

“Perhaps Harne will take up his notes,” he warned. 
“You can’t be certain of anything until the end of time. 
All he needs is thirty thousand. ...” 

“Which is only thirty thousand more than he can 
get,” Doolittle laughed. “Don’t worry, Swede. Those 
cables will be wired all right, and they will start such a 


26 o 


BLACK GOLD 


cargo of miners and engineers and machinery traveling 
north as will drive this town insane.” 

From the room behind Doolittle came a low, cackling 
laugh of derision; yet when all looked quickly, Parks’ 
features were stolid and unmoved. 

“And while you gossip about business, I miss my 
story,” Edith Pellinger put in, petulantly. “Goodness 
knows, there is little enough to interest a person up 
here.” 

“Come Gilvert, amuse her if you can,” Pellinger 
added. “It is a pretty tiresome place for a lively girl 
like her.” 

Gilvert shrank backward. 

“To-morrow,” he begged, as his glance shifted to¬ 
wards Parks. 

“To-night,” said Ramsey Doolittle. 

As they walked from the land office, Gilvert glanced 
across his shoulder and appeared altogether abstracted; 
and though Edith Pellinger walked at his side, there 
was nothing in her presence which cheered him. 

“Come, Mr. Gilvert,” she said, “you were going to 
tell me about the man who loved an Indian girl in the 
north and a great lady in the south.” 

“I can’t tell you now,” Gilvert spoke harshly. “It 
seemed a likely story once; but it’s too damned serious 
now.” 

Careless of the warning, Edith Pellinger scented only 
the mystery, and she liked the smack of Gilvert’s 
coarseness. It was power, to compel this brutish man 
along a course he did not choose to take. 


WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES 


261 


“Serious,” she urged. “Perhaps personal ... to 
the life of Abner Gilvert.” 

“No, not to me. . . . But that don’t prevent it be¬ 
ing personal to some of us here.” 

They stopped abruptly, the four of them, in the 
deserted highway of Valdez, beneath the luminous 
moon which threw its beaming silence about them. 
Somehow, the men turned to stare at Edith Pellinger, 
and in Doolittle’s eyes there was a taunt. 

“That becomes almost insulting,” he said. 

There was drama in that; for they who but a moment 
before had been spectators, had stepped abruptly into 
the roles of chief actors. 

The girl sensed something of that, for she added 
hurriedly, 

“Because I am a lady from the south ?” 

“Does that make it any the less true?” Gilvert de¬ 
manded obstinately. 

“But the other woman? The Indian girl?” Edith 
Pellinger insisted. 

For a moment Gilvert stared, as though he wondered 
at her cool acceptance of the part; then he returned 
with aggravating carelessness, 

“That part of it was a lie. She is not an Indian. 
Her blood is as good as your own.” 

“When am I to meet her?” the woman pressed 
coldly. 

“When? I understand you have met her, but you 
did not know her. You remember, a few hours 
ago. . . 


262 


BLACK GOLD 


To the woman’s brain there flashed a picture of the 
girl in the Nootka garb, the girl upon whom, she 
believed at the time, Harne had looked with undue 
compassion and tenderness. 

“That person?” she cried, in humiliation. “That? 
He could think of that creature in the same hour as 
myself?” 

Edith Pellinger looked about the circle, to see a 
sneer upon the lips of Doolittle, pity in the face of her 
father; but on Gilvert’s countenance there was some¬ 
thing she could not understand. 

Suddenly the woman’s face went white with anger. 
She, toyed with, by a man infinitely beneath her rank 
in the social world, and for that uncouth girl who 
seemed half Indian! Quickly the passion flamed to 
her outraged features, and she stood before Gilvert 
as the spirit of anger. 

“Heaven help you, Gilvert, if you have lied to me,” 
she cried, in a low voice. 

“Heaven help me,” he exclaimed in reply, “if I 
have not told you the truth for she is Marcile, the 
child known as my daughter.” 

“Your daughter?” Pellinger retorted, “and the man 
still lives? Come, Edith, this North is no place for 
us. We will take the next boat home. The work is 
for men like Gilvert.” 

The girl’s only reply was a glance of gratitude which 
she cast upon Doolittle, as she reached out to take the 
man’s hand in her own and draw him towards her. 


WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES 263 


What a night of nights in the victory of his life, 
the man Doolittle was saying . . . the woman’s in¬ 
fatuation already broken, and the man, his enemy, to 
be broken upon the morrow! 


CHAPTER XXXI 


THE REAL PARKS 

For many minutes Parks sat blinking as an animal 
from whose flesh the jaws of a trap have been released. 
Yet as the minutes passed and Gilvert did not return, 
the coolness of judgment and memory came to him 
once more. He sprang to his feet and drew the blinds 
before the window. He shook his clenched fist in the 
direction of his enemy; but in the end his eyes 
softened like those of a child. 

In the whole stern world which buffeted him, there 
seemed but one from whose hands he had received 
the gift of kindness. There was left to him but the 
one altar before which he might lay his sacrifice, 
though it be life itself. 

“It has come about just as he told me,” Parks mused 
to himself slowly. “He said that some time they 
would throw me. He said that I knew too much, and 
he was right. . . . And he said fer me to go to him in 
the end. . . 

With the slow deliberation of a man who carries 
out the revolt on which he has long meditated, Parks 
went about his work. A few sentences he wrote, then 
he twirled open the safe, took from an inner compart¬ 
ment a bulging envelope, added to it what he had just 
264 


THE REAL PARKS 


265 


written, put all in his pocket, blew out the lamp, and 
silently dropped from the window as those others had 
done. 

Parks stopped at the house on Main Street to which 
Harne had moved from the' Golden Arms in order to 
avoid the association of Ramsey Doolittle, but he found 
that he was too late. Already Harne and Beaubien 
had started on that unexplained journey to the North. 

For a half hour Parks walked the streets in doubt, 
and gradually the tempest in his brain led him to seek 
the calmness of the sea. As he drew near the docks, 
he could see two figures upon the pier, the one that 
of a man, the other a figure shrouded in a long cloak 
which reached to the tips of her shoes. The woman’s 
voice came to him low and muffled, but in it was a 
sorrow deep enough to make Parks forget his own. 

“Yes, Hart,” were the few disjointed words Parks 
caught at the end, “I think I understand it better now. 
Rupert does not really love the woman, but he has 
promised . . . long ago . . .” 

Parks did not try to listen longer. For the plea in 
Marcile’s voice brought to him a sudden memory of 
the past. He had all but forgotten the girl; but were 
not these written words of his as much for the girl as 
for Rupert Harne? They would be safe in her 
keeping, though so unsafe in his own. 

So Parks drew closer, and he touched Marcile upon 
the arm as he thrust the package before him. 

“It is for Harne,” he said dully. “Give it to him 
at the moment of his greatest need.” 


266 


BLACK GOLD 


The agent turned hastily away, then he swung upon 
them as one who pleads for the little happiness which 
has never been his. . . . “Say it just that way/’ he 
added softly, “and he will understand/’ 

Parks turned away, and they watched until he was 
only a thinning shadow melting away in the moonlight. 

“Poor Parks,” Garry murmured, “there is some¬ 
thing more depressing than usual about him to-night. 
His life has not been a happy one.” 

“Yet I feel his unhappiness will bring joy to others,” 
Marcile returned gently. “You know there is a law of 
inequality, as well as a law of equality. By the former, 
one must suffer in order that another may have happi¬ 
ness, and something tells me that if Parks were to will 
to another the portion of happiness which he has never 
had, he would give it to me.” 


CHAPTER XXXII 


REVENGE HAS LOST ITS SAVOR 

Marcile looked out across the sea, along the 
luminous pathway which the moon cut through the en¬ 
veloping darkness; and upon that silvered pathway 
were the white-crested breakers which towered for an 
instant then fell to their death below. That was end¬ 
less striving for a goal which they could never reach ; 
a striving like the struggle in her own heart. 

Life must be like those endless waves, a thing buoyed 
aloft, reaching for the lofty skies, reaching and grasp¬ 
ing, then tumbling and falling in the moment of em¬ 
inence. And there had been a moment of eminence in 
her life, when all things that were full of joy and beauty 
had been pouring like a torrent upon the fire of her 
youth. Well, she had lived, a few weeks or months, 
in the vision of the future, in the refracted glory of 
that moment when Rupert Harne would take her in his 
arms and hold her there, when his lips would be warm 
as they had been warm in the valley of the Chitina. 

A cloud flitting off there, before the face of the 
moon, blotted out for a moment that silver highway 
where the waves still tossed and chafed. A cloud 
before her own life, black, with only the night before. 

A weight there, heavy against her heart; the weight 
267 


268 


BLACK GOLD 


of papers which Parks had placed in her hands. It 
rustled softly, almost like the whispering of unseen 
lips; it rose and fell with the swelling of her chest. 
Papers, entrusted to her, for Rupert Harne. 

Papers, to be given to him in the hour of his greatest 
need. 

Perhaps they meant everything to him, the future, 
life itself, and happiness in the arms of Edith 
Pellinger; and they rustled, gently, like a voice which 
whispers the secrets of some forbidden message. They 
whispered to the barbarity in her soul, they whipped at 
the old longing for violence; they spoke of the triumph 
of crudity; and they told her, as well, that it was 
Rupert Harne who had wounded her. 

Papers which, if scattered upon the tips of the moon¬ 
lit waves, would melt like the liquid of glacier, would 
laugh in mockery, would leap high as though cherish¬ 
ing the sky, and would fall then into the darkness of the 
valley beyond. And Rupert Harne in their midst. 

Yes, it would be the end of the hopes of Harne; 
and Marcile wondered again. . . . Would the silken- 
clad arms of Edith Pellinger be warm for the embrace 
of a pauper? 

Life was like that, like the waves which fretted, 
which leaped and gloried and died; which felt deeply 
for a moment, and then . . . drabness ... or per¬ 
haps blackness. How could she know? 

But was it better to have seen, to have felt, to have 
believed for a moment, then to have remained forever 
in the valley? 


REVENGE HAS LOST ITS SAVOR 269 

Marcile’s hand rose up and stilled that rustling 
sound; the throbbing of its distant voice was dead 
now . . . and when the hand came away again it 
held the package which Parks had entrusted to her care. 

Such a little thing; and how stupid was life, after 
all. 

A package of papers, almost without weight as it 
rested upon her hand; and yet with a little motion it 
could be plunged into the sea, and could carry with it 
all the hope of a living being. 

A living being who had held her in his arms, and 
who now held another, whose flame had burned for her 
and died, who had kindled in her the consuming fires 
which must go on forever carrying the torture of 
sacrifice before her soul. ... A man, and he had 
wounded her. . . . And she could strike back, strike 
back and wound, could rend him and bring torment as 
he had brought torment to her. . . . 

Just the flipping of the wrist, and the package would 
be a voyageur upon that silvery pathway of the 
sea. . . . And she; and he . . . ? 

Yes, she would be dead, a living sacrifice before the 
fires which consumed. . . . And Rupert Harne? 

Thank God for the discerning heart of all woman¬ 
kind which had prompted her to-night, which had 
made her don the garb of the Nootka, that she might 
look out, as though from a palisade, upon the un¬ 
suspecting face of Man. There had been warmth to¬ 
night; and sorrow, in his manner. And bondage. 

How that package quivered and fluttered in her fin- 


27 o 


BLACK GOLD 


gers, caught by the caress of some passing breeze. 
There were waves just beyond, licking waves which 
reached up and begged that she revert to their violence, 
to their cry to wound. 

They were waves, silver-tipped things with little 
crests of whitened foam, which drew her towards 
them as though with living arms; waves cold and sul¬ 
len, born of some far-off turbulence of the ocean, and 
whispering now the old law of a blow for a blow. 

Marcile’s arm reached out above them; the pack¬ 
age was in her hand; and she heard the sucking sound 
of their greed as they swished about the sunken timbers 
of the dock before they raced back to the sea. 

It was there, between the tips of her fingers, a quiv¬ 
ering white piece of paper, and the faintest loosening 
of her grip would paint its pathway across the whole 
course of the future. 

Such a little thing; and the man had wounded her. 
And yet; his eyes, his voice, when he had found her 
but a few hours ago in the garb of the Nootka. Pa¬ 
thos there, remorse, a world of regret; and bondage. 

With a little frightened cry, Marcile thrust the pa¬ 
per once more into the safe recess above her heart, and 
she drew back from the greed of those lapping waves 
as though from personal peril. Her hands clasped 
upon her breast, and she looked once more upon that 
silvered pathway of the sea. 

Then she turned and fled. 

For it was bondage, now, she knew, which added 
to the greatness of the man’s faith to Edith Pellinger. 


REVENGE HAS LOST ITS SAVOR 271 

The wind whipped about her when once more she 
stepped into the daylit streets of Valdez, but that was 
only the rushing of the elements to meet her own 
tempestuous mood; it was but their lashing to drive 
her on to this thing which she must do. 

Yet it was relief to step through the doorway into 
the corridor of a double-story shack where Rupert 
Harne now made his home. 

No, he was not home; a man told her that, with a 
leer upon his lips. But that leer mattered so little; 
nothing could matter much, after the next few hours 
had gone. 

She climbed the stairway and passed into a room, 
Harne’s room; and she closed the door behind her, 
for she knew what she must do now, with none but 
her own soul to keep vigil. 

Her fingers moved in response to her will, and they 
brought forth a parcel; the double almost of the 
whitened paper which had fluttered over the edge of the 
dock of Valdez. Except that it was larger, more 
weighty; and it fell from her fingers with a dull 
thud. 

Marcile looked about her. Upon Harne’s table 
was a pile of books, but nothing more. For an in¬ 
stant she stared at them, as though demanding to know 
the real secret of her own mission; then with a swift 
gesture and a tightening of the lips she pushed the 
package towards them. 

From somewhere, deep within her heart, there rose 
a cry. 


272 


BLACK GOLD 


“He will win. He must win. . . . And so will 
she.” 

With a little gasp, Marcile caught the parcel into 
her arms, and she half turned as though to flee. She 
stood thus through the minutes. Then the package 
slipped from her arms again; and this time, slowly, 
deliberately, she piled the books in a tumbling disarray 
upon it. 

“Each one an anchor,” she murmured, “to make 
me ... as great ... as he.” 

Then she sank upon her knees before them, with 
her face buried in her hands, her hands resting upon 
the last treasure of happiness which she had found 
the courage to thrust from her. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


THE DEPTHS 

Marcile came out into a highway wind-laden and 
whipped into violence. It was the tang of the sea 
picked up and hurled northward; and as its curling 
fingers played about the bright cheeks of Marcile they 
were like the beckoning of wanderlust. 

The cry of far spaces was astir in the blood of the 
daughter of the Chitina, for there was nothing left to 
her now but the balm which might come out of the 
Gilead of the North. Perhaps, off there, in the giant 
valleys which had rocked her, among the cold hills 
which had taught her, along the hard trail which dead¬ 
ened the mind to things not physical, there might come 
peace for her throbbing wounds. 

For her there was nothing but defeat, and blackness. 

Harne must win, and in his arms would be the 
woman from the south, a silken thing, toy-like and 
fragile; from another world, a world which Marcile 
could hold no more in her visions. 

Wind, growing more violent with the passing min¬ 
utes, as though it would pick her aloft and hurl her 
once more into the crudity of the Valley of the 
Chitina; wind which swept the highway clean even 
of its people. 


273 


274 


BLACK GOLD 


No, not all clean; for two men were coming towards 
her. 

On Doolittle’s features there was the expanding 
leer of conquest; on Gilvert’s was the brand of tor¬ 
ment; and in that instant there came to Marcile the 
swift demand that she should wipe some of that tri¬ 
umph from the self-satisfied face of Ramsey Doolittle, 
that she should bring into the hearts of others some of 
that terror of defeat which she herself must face un¬ 
til the last of her days. 

She stopped before them, while the wind lashed her 
garments about her; she braced herself against its 
violence, and looked up to peer into the face of Doo¬ 
little. Then she laughed, with echoes which carried on 
the wind. 

“You, Doolittle, the man-crusher!” 

She laughed again and would have passed on; but 
the man put out a hand and gripped her by the arm, 
and they stood there, braced together, while the wind 
shrieked of violence, and the passions of man, and 
victory. 

“What do you mean, girl?” 

“That you can never win; not now.” 

Marcile twisted from his grasp, and the wind 
whipped them apart. Yes, that was balm, to pour upon 
her wound; for the smirk had flashed swiftly from 
the lips of Ramsey Doolittle, driven away by straight 
lines which spoke of sudden fear. 

“No, not now,” she echoed. “He has the money.” 

The wind roared and whined, and Marcile let it 


THE DEPTHS 


275 


play with her body, lifting her, carrying her almost, 
but thrusting her down the highway. Doolittle did 
not answer; he turned sharply and peered into Gilvert’s 
face. 

'‘You hear that?” he demanded; and Abner Gilvert 
nodded slowly, with a cunning flash of hope. 

Marcile glanced backward, and she laughed to see 
two men still standing in the roadway, peering into 
each other’s face, with their clothes flapping in the 
wind. It was primitive, she knew, to ask that others 
should suffer with her; but on the heart of Marcile 
there was emblazoned the code of the North, and 
one year of civilization could not wipe it out. 

So she laughed again as she watched the men stand¬ 
ing in the midst of the deserted highway, with the 
wind whipping the dust of the street about them, and 
with fear showing through their fantastic pose. Then 
laughter reached her, the high-pitched notes of Doo¬ 
little’s outward mirth; and a moment later they turned 
and made their way against the blast which was goad¬ 
ing that northern world into a fury. 

Harne made his way against the blast, with Beaubien 
at his side, and then they parted at the doorway of 
his lodging. From across the highway, eyes were 
peering upon him, through the drawn shutters of a 
Valdez shack; but Harne knew nothing of that. 
While upon the street he walked with his old erectness, 
buoyant, with the unquenchable spirit uppermost. 

Yet once beyond the gaze of mankind, his figure 


276 


BLACK GOLD 


drooped, and he climbed the stairs with dragging 
steps. To him there remained but the yielding. 

In time he came to the table at the side of which 
Marcile had prayed. Something about it, he felt, was 
disturbed; but there was a fever in his brain so vastly 
disarranged that in this moment he could not think 
of minor things. At length he sank down beside the 
table, where Marcile had fallen upon her knees, and he 
sat there, staring through and beyond the bare walls 
of the room, gazing into the checkered turmoil of 
things which the world had wrapped about him and 
labeled life. 

That journey with Beaubien, which he had fancied 
promising, had been a dejecting thing. It had served 
but the purpose of opening up to him the tragedy of 
another’s life. For the greater part of a day Beaubien 
had led him through the mists and over the hills, only 
at night to come to a spot where the black valleys 
drew in more blackly. It was then, by the light of a 
torch, that Beaubien had taken him by the hand and 
had led him to the mouth of a cave which Harne 
knew he could never find again. There Beaubien had 
fallen upon his face. 

“Her grave! Her grave,” Beaubien had cried bit¬ 
terly, with his old insanity all gone. “Tiens! Beau¬ 
bien now knows the man who did it. Cela!” 

The memory of that, out there in the night, with 
the lurid torch flaring, and the darting shadows which 
played over Beaubien’s writhing features, did not help 


THE DEPTHS 


277 


Harne now. He even felt a little resentment to think 
that Beaubien should have dragged him into the wilds 
on such an errand as that, with the promise that the 
trip meant victory, and at a time when every hour 
counted. But, with these hours wasted, Harne felt 
that nothing could help him now. He even began 
to feel that he did not want anything to help him. 

Then, in its turn, came rebellion, and he reached out 
his hands and clenched them savagely. His knuckles 
came into contact with books which had been thrown in 
a disordered pile upon the table. For a moment that 
meant nothing; then later it carried to him some 
mechanical, disinterested message. Some person had 
been in the room; Garry doubtless; but that could not 
matter now. 

His fingers moved over some object which lay be¬ 
fore him, felt and toyed with it for a time, as though 
they wondered while the brain was afar; then his 
eyes found it, and Harne himself became conscious of 
the fact that he held in his hands a package which he 
had never seen before. It was addressed to him, in 
writing which he did not know. 

Even that could not matter; but with absent fingers 
he tore it open. Why should he hurry now? Why 
should he ever hurry again to the end of his days? 

A folded slip of paper met his fingers; and when 
he spread it before his eyes, there was some strange 
message upon it. 

“It is yours, all yours, what you will find in the 


278 


BLACK GOLD 


package. Heaven knows I owe it to you. Once I 
was coward enough to want you to lose; but now I be¬ 
lieve I am brave enough to let you win.” 

That was all. It was an unsigned thing, in writ¬ 
ing which he did not know. A joke, doubtless, on 
the part of the victors. 

Harne tore the envelope wider, and there came from 
within a greenish glint which made him pause in won¬ 
der and hold the package from him at arm’s length. 
Money! Stack after stack of it, folded neatly, glower¬ 
ing upon him as though in mockery. 

He tore the envelope aside, but his eyes had not 
deceived him. It was really there, roll after roll of 
bank notes. They fell upon the table in a heap, 
and they lay like the spirit of victory come to blink 
at him through the darkness of defeat. 

Money, the only thing in the world which could save 
him from Doolittle now! And it was there before 
him, pile upon pile of it, though where it came from 
he could only wonder. Eagerly Harne set to work 
to count the bills, and as the last one fell from his 
hand he sprang to his feet, and an exclamation slipped 
from his lips. 

‘‘Thirty thousand dollars! Who could possibly have 
known the exact amount which would save me?” 

Then Harne sat down again, and his fingers toyed 
with this new wealth as a child plays with the sands 
of the sea. It was good to win this, in the last hour 
before defeat; but it would be better still to know who 
had won for him. 


THE DEPTHS 


279 


For a time he pondered, then suddenly he sat erect 
and bent his head to listen to the heavy tramping of 
feet upon the stairs. Someone was coming his way. 
There were more than one. With his hands still 
buried in the bills, Harne sat motionless until the door 
swung open and three men entered unannounced. 

Even through his first amazement, Harne was con¬ 
scious that still other men had climbed the stairway 
silently, and were standing just outside, looking in 
upon the scene. 

Abner Gilvert was the first to enter, and upon his 
features there glowed the gratification of a revenge 
which had fed and magnified upon its own fires. 
Upon Doolittle’s countenance there was only a cold 
scorn for the weak; while the third man merely stared, 
as though awaiting the commands of the others. 

“Well, officer, what you waiting for?” Gilvert de¬ 
manded. “Ain’t there proofs enough, right before 
your eyes?” 

“Yes, sheriff,” Doolittle added, smiling suavely, 
“isn’t it enough for us to find the guilty party, or must 
we make the arrest as well ?” 

With the last words, Harne’s fingers tightened until 
the crumpling of bills became quite audible, and he 
raised to his feet in a threatening manner. 

“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” he de¬ 
manded, turning to Doolittle, as though careless of 
the others. “Could you not wait for your money, 
Doolittle, until the day was up? Must you have it 
before the hour?” 


28 o 


BLACK GOLD 


There was a taunt in Doolittle’s polite laughter, 
but Gilvert was less controlled. 

“Cut the bluffing,” he became arrogant, “you can’t 
get over that evidence.” 

“Evidence ?” 

So that was it? He had heard of such things 
before; there was such trickery in the world; and now 
that he looked more closely at the third man, the 
significance of it all swept down upon him like a 
calamity. For that man was the sheriff; before him 
were two accusers, and there, upon the table, were the 
bills, roll upon roll of them, to the sum of thirty 
thousand dollars. Yes, it was an old trick, and yet 
new. 

“Evidence, of what?” he asked calmly enough. 

“Parks was murdered last night,” the sheriff said. 
“He was robbed of some valuable documents and 
thirty thousand dollars in bills.” 

Thirty thousand! For an instant there came across 
Harne’s brain the blackness of night. He could feel 
the tendrils of the net they had wrapped about him, 
and in that first instant there flashed up the primitive 
flame for combat. 

Gilvert stepped back swiftly until he found himself 
behind the sheriff, and from that sanctuary he offered 
hasty advice. 

“Whisk him for guns.” 

“You ain’t going to fight, are you, Mr. Harne?” 
the sheriff asked ingratiatingly. “I ain’t done you any 
harm; and I guess it’s all a mistake anyway.” 


THE DEPTHS 


281 


“Mistake!” Gilvert’s voice was harsh. “Let others 
decide that. Take him in hand, sheriff.” 

“You ain’t going to fight, Mr. Harne,” the sheriff 
was still mild, “you see I’m only doing my duty. . . .” 

“No, I’m not going to fight . . . you. But if you 
will step aside for a moment . . .” 

“Arrest him, you fool,” Gilvert barked, “whisk 
him for guns.” 

“No, Gilvert, this is not a case for guns,” Harne 
spoke slowly. “That would be too crude, too un¬ 
satisfying; for nothing can make me the same again 
until I have felt my fingers about your throat. Guns 
are too cold for a case like this; so, sheriff, will you 
please stand aside. . . 

“And I will take this money, to keep it out of the 
way,” Doolittle spoke casually, only to find a sharp 
interruption from the doorway. 

For two men sprang into the room. At the head 
was Garry; and behind him was Silent Tom Harlow, 
and in the hand of each was the gleaming blue of a 
revolver. 

“You will keep your mucky little hands off that 
money,” Garry spoke crisply. “There is enough poi¬ 
son on it already. And you, Gilvert, you’re right in 
the line of fire. Duck. . . . Now that you’ve ducked, 
I want to say a word to that mangy little cur that 
goes by the name of Doolittle. . . .” 

The face of Doolittle flamed with passion. 

“Arrest him, sheriff. He must have had a hand, 
too, in the murder of Parks.” 


28 2 


BLACK GOLD 


“Murder?” Garry exclaimed; then stood looking 
about him in a dazed way. 

His glance roved about the circle, from the trium¬ 
phant Doolittle to the gloating Gilvert, from the 
puzzled sheriff to Harne and back again. 

“I see,” he decided, at length, “a plant. Well, Rupe, 
you’d better go; but little cur Doolittle doesn’t get his 
fingers on this money. I’m on to you, Doolittle. 
You’d keep that money until it is too late for Harne 
to pay; and then steal the claims. All right, hands off; 
and back to the gutter where you belong.” 

The ominous swinging of Garry’s gun-arm thrust 
Doolittle backward; and into the eyes of Abner Gilvert, 
crouching by the table, there had come a certain shift¬ 
ing of doubt. 

“Now, sheriff, take charge of that money,” Garry 
instructed, “and keep it safe until we know more about 
this trickery. As for you, Doolittle, out you go. 
You’re not a welcome guest even where polecats are 
popular.” 

As he spoke, Garry prodded Doolittle’s expansive 
front with the muzzle of his revolver, and the thrust 
was so sincere that the king of finance lost no time 
in making his way to the street below. At the bottom 
of the stairway he turned about, only to find the body 
of Abner Gilvert plunging down towards him, while 
Harne stood upon the landing above. 

“That was his round,” Doolittle said with a scowl, 
as he picked up the shattered Gilvert. “Now, this is 


ours. 


THE DEPTHS 283 

In the doorway they waited for the sheriff and his 
victim. 

A moment later Harne walked forth in custody, 
while Garry and Harlow dropped their weapons in 
their pockets and made up the rear of a strange pro¬ 
cession which tramped down the highway of Valdez, 
their faces set against the wind which already seemed 
to be picking up tiny particles of the sea to fling them 
landward. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


GILVERT’S TRIUMPH 

From each shop and dwelling as they passed, the 
citizens of Valdez trooped silently, as ancient Rome 
must have flocked before the processions of its trib¬ 
unes, with arms waving, voices raised, and with the 
wind whipping the words from their lips. 

Abner Gilvert glanced coldly at the men who swung 
in beside him; for he knew the code of the north 
which was flashing from their eyes. A life for a life; 
Parks was dead; and here, with manacles clanking upon 
his wrists, was a man who had come among them 
from the world beyond. 

A life for a life! Passion in the eyes of men; and 
Valdez wakening from its long sleep between the hills 
and the sea. 

At times an ominous calm in the words of men, 
when only the wind spoke and carried its violence into 
the hearts of living things. It was the message which 
had gone out from the cold body of Parks; it was 
the spirit of justice crying in the wilderness. Majesty 
in this giant staging, as the gale lashed up from the 
sea and whirled its stinging spray about them; majesty 
in the passions of men. 


284 


GILVERTS TRIUMPH 285 

Gilvert threw his hands high above his head while 
his garments flapped about him. 

A life for a life, shining there in the eyes of men; 
and this the moment of his triumph! 

Men all around him now, on both sides, at the back, 
a swelling mob; and they to do justice. 

At times again there came a low, sullen rumbling 
which lived in spite of the wind, an elemental rumbling 
which spoke of growing anger, a rumbling which 
echoed like the beat of a living heart, of one living 
heart. 

Yes, there would be but one heart here among them 
all, one code to be lived, one spark to be flamed. And 
there would be one climactic moment in which to blow 
upon that kindling spark the breath of his emotion. 

They reached the land office, with its raised plat¬ 
form before it. Abner Gilvert sprang to the dais; 
he swung quickly about, and he faced the mob curving 
all around him. 

With arms out-thrust, he waved them back; and in 
that instant, with beneficent arms above them, he as¬ 
sumed the pose of the judiciary. He, Gilvert, the 
murderer, stood before them exalted; and the irony 
of that brought new lines of cruelty and daring to 
his lips. 

So he stood there, upon his judge’s throne, and with 
the weight of his words he whipped that living wall 
into a half circle. Before him, in a little open space, 
stood Harne, with the irons dangling from his wrists, 
and with the sheriff looking affrightedly about him. 


286 


BLACK GOLD 


Gilvert, looking down upon the restless citizens of 
Valdez, knew the fickleness of the mob. In the place 
of Harne, it might have been himself, or Doolittle, or 
any other man, and the instincts of that age-old code 
of Man would have been working just the same. 

So once more he tossed his arms aloft in abandon. 

“Friends, citizens of Valdez,” he cried, with voice 
borne far upon the winds, “one of our number lies 
dead, in the room behind me, killed by another’s hands, 
by a man’s bare hands. The marks of murdering 
fingers are upon a dead man’s throat. The man Parks 
is dead; and now you, good citizens of Valdez, have 
come to mete out justice. But, citizens, you must not 
take the life of another without the proofs. Friends, 
let me ask you . . . Why was Parks killed? It was 
for money, money which lay in that safe, and for 
papers of value which were wrapped about it. You 
all know the sum which was stolen from the office of 
little Parks. It has been upon every tongue that it 
was thirty thousand dollars. Now think, men and 
women, every one of you. Who among us most 
needed that money? Who had to have that amount 
of money? You all know the story of the man whose 
claims fall dead, whose mine passes into the hands of 
another to-night if he does not pay the debt which 
is against him. What was the amount of that debt? 
Let us all hear it from the tongue of one who knows. 
Speak, Ramsey Doolittle, say what was the amount 
Harne must have to save himself.” 


GILVERTS TRIUMPH 


287 


Keenly the crude, burning eyes of that throng turned 
upon Ramsey Doolittle, and they demanded the 
answer. Yet Doolittle shrank back, as one who knows 
well that passion is fed upon the flame which denies 
it. 

“Why should I tell ?” he demanded. “That is a 
matter between us two alone. It has no bearing. ,, 

From the dull, heavy throats of the mob there rolled 
out a warning cry. 

“Tell us, Doolittle. We are not here as children.” 

And as men cried out, the hard faces pressed closer 
about the narrowing circle. 

As one who mingles brazenness through fear, Doo¬ 
little returned, 

“You’ll have to find out for yourselves.” 

“Then we’ll kill you too,” came back a voice which 
seemed to shriek upon the wind. 

Doolittle started with fear. 

“Good heavens, men,” he exclaimed, “if you must 
have it, it was thirty thousand dollars.” 

For a moment Gilvert did not speak. His arms 
dropped to his sides, as one whose decision is made, 
but who waits for the slower minds to grasp the facts 
about them. And in that gesture the waiting mob 
caught the answer. 

“He must die! He must die!” came back the voices 
thick with passion. 

For an instant Gilvert stood there, drinking in the 
wine of his success. He must taste of it more. He 


288 


BLACK GOLD 


must fix upon his brain more firmly the picture of his 
greatest triumph; then would he raise his hands above 
his head once more, in signal. . . . 

While Gilvert still paused, there came from the edge 
of the circle a shrill, cutting voice, 

“The man who killed Parks must be dead before 
sundown. You have spoken, Gilvert.” 

Why Gilvert should tremble only he himself could 
say; but caught in a sudden panic, he thrust his hands 
high above his head for the signal. In this instant 
a man leaped to the platform and stood before him, 
dominant even as Gilvert had been dominant but a 
moment ago. 

“Tiens, he who killed will be one tarn dead long 
before the sun,” the man cried out; and those who 
saw, knew it to be the crazed Beaubien. 

There was a message beneath those vibrant tones 
which reached the understanding of Gilvert alone, a 
message so strong that a pallor could be seen creeping 
up beneath the tan of his cheeks. 

For an instant Gilvert drew back as one who shrinks 
from a blow, then he sprang forward and cried fiercely, 

“Take him, take the man Harne and kill him before 
this accursed Frenchman fills your ears with lies.” 

In this quick crisis, the shrewdness of his old judg¬ 
ment had left Abner Gilvert. There remained in his 
brain only the need for quick action; yet from his 
confusion there were those among the watchers who 
found food for caution. They drew back from the 
circle like the loosening of a taut string, and Rupert 


GILVERTS TRIUMPH 


289 


Harne, seeing the tide of their passions arrested for 
an instant, raised his manacled arms high in the air, 
so that they clanked in the wind. They could see that 
his face was confident, even smiling. 

“Friends,” he said calmly, “Gilvert has condemned 
me. It was he who condemned me, and not you. He 
has condemned without hearing the defence, because 
the defence may not please his ears. May I speak?” 

Through the pause could be heard a loud guffaw. 
The tension of the audience was dropping. 

“Go ahead, boss, have yer say,” came the rough 
answer of one who had been among the first to accuse. 
“I guess it won’t do us no harm to hear you out. If 
yer wanter confess, why go ahead while we’re makin’ 
the noose.” 

“See how Gilvert’s face is whitening,” Harne began 
with startling abruptness. “He, at least, does not want 
to hear me out. But it is this ... I, with Beaubien, 
was a half day’s travel from here at the moment Parks 
was killed.” 

“They could have returned in the night,” Gilvert 
shrieked out, with the torment of fear already upon 
him. 

“There are two of us to say we did not,” Harne 
returned, unmoved. 

“If you were not here in the night, where were 
you?” Gilvert flared angrily. 

Harne pointed to Beaubien, a figure crouching 
stealthily, with animal-like movement. 

“Tam! By the grave of Maxine!” Beaubien cried 


290 


BLACK GOLD 


out, as his fingers clenched and unclenched under the 
lash of some violent emotion. 

‘‘By the grave of Maxine/’ Harne repeated. “You 
hear that, good citizens all? Beaubien and I went 
last night to the grave of Maxine. You all know the 
story of Maxine. You did not know the man who 
killed her. But Parks knew the man; and it was 
Parks who died last night. Look at Gilvert, friends 
all. Gilvert knows who killed Maxine; and he knows 
why he killed her. . . 

The defiance fled from Gilvert’s pose. All the red 
of triumph swept from his features. There remained 
only the strained attitude of an animal which sees but 
the one way to leap. 

“But the money, the thirty thousand dollars!” he 
cried in a voice of fear. “The money which was found 
in the hands of Rupert Harne, the money which was 
stolen from Parks’ safe. You forget, good people, 
that we found the proofs in his hands. Why do you 
wait longer ? * Are you cowards ? Have you forgotten 
the code of the North, a life for a life?” 

For the second time Harne was upon the defensive. 
For the second time that audience, so fickle to be turned 
by every wind of emotion, looked to him, to explain. 

“The money, show it, sheriff,” Gilvert pressed. 

The officer held both hands high above his head, 
and there, so that all might see, were the rolls of 
money whose existence Harne knew he could not 
explain. 

“We found that in Harne’s room,” Doolittle vol- 




GILVERTS TRIUMPH 291 

unteered. “We were looking for the murderer, and 
we found him there, with his fingers playing with the 
money he had won by the death of another. So, 
good people, we owed it to you, to come and tell you. 
If Harne can explain, I have no doubt you will be glad 
to listen.” 

Again were those eyes fixed upon him sullenly, and 
Harne could feel some of their anger, some of the 
cold hatred of men who cared not where they struck, 
as long as their law was sated. All about, in the faces 
of those who waited, he saw no pity, no hint of com¬ 
passion, only a dull leaden demand for violence. In 
a half-conscious way he knew that Garry was no longer 
at his side, and he wondered if in his hour of greatest 
danger even his friends had deserted him. 

Suddenly Gilvert spoke again, mockingly. 

“Well, Harne, we’re waiting. Where did you get 
that money?” 

“I cannot tell you.” 

In this strategic moment, Gilvert waved them for¬ 
ward; and with a dull anger, rising in crescendo, the 
watchers crushed towards the man whose wrists were 
bound with iron. Back into Gilvert’s face there 
flowed the blood of courage. His arms dropped limply 
at his side as one who has won at great cost. 

Hands were tearing Harne now from his captors; 
and in that instant came the unexpected. 

Where Marcile came from, they did not know. 
Only those in the front ranks knew that when the 
magnetic power of her womanly presence had woven 


292 


BLACK GOLD 


its spell about them, their grasping hands fell from 
the death they sought to deliver. 

Before Marcile’s upraised arms, the crowd fell back. 
Upon the girl’s face they could see a great eagerness; 
and the stamp of some conflict which had been hers. 

“You have asked where Rupert Harne got that 
money,” she cried in a voice personal to each man of 
them. “Well, I will answer you. ... It was I who 
gave it to him!” 

For a time there was a hush like the silent gap 
between two gusts of wind, then out of that silence 
grew the low, muttering voice of relief. 

“You? You gave it to him?” said a gasping voice 
at her shoulder, and for the first time Marcile turned 
and became conscious of the presence of Abner Gilvert. 

“Yes, I gave it to him,” Marcile answered without 
faltering. “It is his to use as he likes. It is his to 
buy back his claim . . . from the men who thought 
to rob him.” 

Looking upon Ramsey Doolittle and the anger which 
had grown up in his eyes, Marcile was glad she had 
spoken thus; she was glad of the decision she had 
made; but looking upon Abner Gilvert, her father, 
and seeing the pallor creeping about his lips, she was 
more sorry than she could say. She was sorry that 
she had spoken, or that the man was her father. 

“You . . . ingrate!” Doolittle’s words were choked 
with anger. 

“Yes, good friends,” Marcile spoke to the crowd 
again, “I am an ingrate. For it was Ramsey Doo- 


GILVERT’S TRIUMPH 


293 


little, or his syndicate, who bought from me my claim. 
They gave me the money for it, a hundred thousand 
dollars. And I gave a part of it—the thirty thousand 
dollars you see in the sheriff’s hands—to Rupert 
Harne, that he might go on fighting the cowards who 
have struck him always in the back. So the evil of 
Doolittle has overstepped itself; it has now turned back 
upon him. . . 

Suddenly Marcile paused and became conscious of 
her womanliness. From the center of the throng she 
could feel the concentrated warmth of eyes which 
burned upon her. So intense was their gaze that they 
overpowered all her feelings of triumph and remorse 
and anger; so pleading were they that in an instant her 
lips became sealed to the secret between them, the 
secret, she whispered, of love. 

Now, as Marcile looked upon Rupert Harne, she 
could see all the mingled lights of incredulous wonder 
and amazement written largely upon his features, and 
she could see as well the smouldering fires of gratitude 
. . . and something infinitely stronger. As though in 
reverence, the winds which raced up from the sea 
stilled for an instant, and through the calm the girl’s 
whisper reached out above the throng; and it was a 
voice no longer angered. 

“Loosen the man’s hands,” she said softly. 

In a clumsy manner, the sheriff threw off the 
manacles, held them for an instant, then let them 
fall to the ground with a dull jangling sound. 

“Come,” the girl said simply. 


294 


BLACK GOLD 


In front of Marcile and Rupert Harne, the mob, 
which but a moment before had thought to still its 
anger in blood, parted swiftly on either side. 

The men who had hoped to kill, turned and watched 
them as they went, watched them tramp the highway 
of Valdez, watched them speechlessly until they were 
one, two, three hundred yards from the little land 
office wherein a man lay dead and unavenged. 

When Harne and Marcile walked away, hand in hand, 
they were as children, innocent of the rest of the world. 
For a long time they did not speak, the wonder which 
each knew lived in the heart of the other was too 
great to break with mere words. At last they reached 
the drab sitting-room of Marcile’s home, and Harne 
dropped into a chair like one who after a storm has 
reached the islands of eternal peace. 

Marcile came to him with a package in her hands, 
but he took those hands in his own and looked up into 
her eyes, before which was a haze of happiness. 

“So you have done this for me,” he said dreamily, 
lingering over the words like one with fresh wine upon 
parched lips, “you have saved me from them all, and 
in the end it is a life for a life. I am glad, Marcile, 
that it was to be, that it was you who must save me. 
Oh, Marcile, it makes me happy, too happy, when I 
think of your sacrifice, how you chose me before all 
else! How we, you and I together, will be able to 
go on and on, to fight them to the end. . . 

For a moment he paused before the amazing won- 


GILVERTS TRIUMPH 


295 


der of that flame in Marcile’s eyes, and he fought with 
his hands to keep them from pulling her down in his 
encircling arms. 

. . It is only the love which has lived in us all 
along/* he went on softly, ‘‘which has never been far 
from us since the moment . . 

“You first kissed my lips.” 

. . The love which I and others have tried to 
drive from me/* 

Then Marcile drew closer and she put the package 
in his hands, the package which was the only salvage 
from Parks’ wasted life. 

“See,” she whispered, “this is yours, the last mes¬ 
sage from Parks. ... Yes, I have chosen between 
you and Abner Gilvert; and they will cast me off; but 
I am glad, more glad than I have ever been in my 
whole life before. For something tells me that I owe 
no kindness to them.” 

“Do not say that, Marcile. Let us think kindly of 
all people at this moment. Let us . . .” 

Tenseness drew over their figures as they followed 
the words which Parks had written, the confession 
which told of a sorrow and a sin he had been too weak 
to reveal. Parks, the weak, had been strong only in 
the last hours before death. 

There was a letter of farewell; there were the pa¬ 
pers for which Gilvert had taken a life in vain; but 
to these neither Harne nor Marcile paid the slight¬ 
est heed. It was in the words of Parks, in a stern and 


296 


BLACK GOLD 


wonderful tale which he unfolded, a tale which told of 
much unhappiness, that they were finding by contrast 
a certain gloomy elation. 

“So out of his misery I do find happiness/' Marcile 
was the first to whisper. 

“It is the same story, the story which Beaubien told 
me by the fireside last night," Harne returned, “the 
story he told me by the grave of Maxine, your 
mother. ..." 

“Beaubien told you that?" the girl added wistfully, 
“told you that Gilvert was not my father. Told you 
that Maxine was my mother, Maxine, the woman for 
whom Beaubien has mourned . . . told you that he 
himself, Beaubien, is my father, the father whom I 
have never known? Beaubien told you, too, how he 
searched for the man who killed my mother, who 
took me when an infant and swore me to a life among 
the Indians. ..." 

“He has told me, too, how in the end he has found 
the man who wronged him, who broke his life years 
ago . . . how he has now found Abner Gilvert." 

There was something so sinister, so prophetically 
tragic, in Harne’s words, that Marcile shivered slightly; 
then she put an arm about his neck and kissed his 
forehead. 

“Beaubien, my father, I must have him now," she 
said pleadingly as a child. “You and he, you are all 
I have in the world, but it is enough. ..." 

Her words trailed away into silence because of the 
trampling of feet which sounded upon the street below. 


GILVERTS TRIUMPH 


297 


What had happened back by the land office they could 
not know; but now they saw below them a second 
procession which was the sequel of those happen¬ 
ings. Marcile drew the man to his feet, she placed 
her arm about his body, and together they looked 
from the window down upon two men who were the 
heart of the last scene of the drama unrolling before 
them. 

At the head was Abner Gilvert, whose arms drooped 
nervelessly at his side, whose feet dragged upon the 
ground, and occasionally threw backwards a frightened 
glance which Ramsey Doolittle answered scowlingly. 
He walked as a man who struggled against, yet yielded 
to, some hypnotic power; and two paces behind, goad¬ 
ing him on, was the man Beaubien. Beaubien’s every 
move was an arrogant command. He was tyran¬ 
nical, arbitrary; his demeanor was that of one whose 
triumph and revenge blazes forth at the end of life, 
who recognizes that each, the victory and the end of 
life, is a part of the other, but who finds the one 
sweeter than living. 

Across Beaubien’s shoulder was flung his battered 
violin, in his hand was the shapeless bow, with which 
every now and then, as though beating out some wild 
fantasy in his brain, he struck the cringing body of 
Gilvert before him. 

Without speaking, Marcile and Harne watched 
that procession until it reached the little quay, until 
it swerved sharply to the left, until it came to a stretch 
of shore line protected by the outer promontory from 


298 


BLACK GOLD 


the beat of the waves, the shore where a kayak lay 
stranded upon the beach. 

They saw Beaubien thrust this treacherous shell 
into the water; they saw him motion Gilvert to the 
center thwart with an imperious jerk of the hand; they 
saw him thrust a paddle into the hands of the man 
who shrank back; but it was only when Beaubien 
forced the kayak from the shore and leaped into the 
rear, that anything of his purpose pierced to their 
waiting brains. 

Out there, beyond the promontory, the blue-black 
waves were leaping ecstatically. From their crests 
the whitened spray was caught in the grip of the wind 
and was hurled landward in showers of mist. And 
it was towards this inevitable death that Beaubien 
was pointing the prow of the kayak. From the dis¬ 
tance they could see that he still beat Gilvert across 
the shoulders with his bow; they could catch its rise 
and fall; they could see that it was Gilvert alone who 
bent to the paddle as though beneath the spur of a 
demon. 

“My God!” Marcile ejaculated, as the fearful im¬ 
port of that journey forced its way to her brain. 
She looked upon Rupert Harne, and her pleading lips 
murmured, “Is there nothing we can do?” 

“Would you save Abner Gilvert?” he asked softly; 
and the girl shook her head with some of the savagery 
which could be seen in Beaubien’s movements. 

Abruptly Beaubien’s wild waving ceased, and as 
swiftly Marcile strained forward. 


GILVERTS TRIUMPH 


299 


“Listen, Listen!” she cried, and Rupert Harne, 
bending forward, saw that Beaubien was making the 
movements of one who plays. Still no sound reached 
them through the closed window; and Marcile turned 
and ran to her room. In a moment she returned, 
with her violin in her hand. 

“Come!” she urged breathlessly, and together they 
ran from the room, nor did they pause until they in 
turn had reached the end of the wharf which jutted 
farthest into the hungry sea. 

“Listen, listen,” the girl whispered more softly, 
as she bent to harken for the message which she knew 
must lie in the wild music. 

Across the water, caught in the snarl of the wind, 
it came, music such as she had first heard on the bank 
of the Copper, from the same maddened violin of this 
same maddened man. Again it was ecstatic, heavenly, 
the summit of joy; but where before it had broken at 
its height because its quest was still darkened, it now 
rose higher and higher like the siren which scorns 
the earth. 

At last Beaubien had found the full vaunting song 
of the heart which triumphs, the song which could 
come to him but once in a lifetime, the triumphant 
dirge of death; and Marcile, reading the message of 
farewell in the strains which were all gladness, leaned 
for an instant upon Harne’s shoulder, half-sobbing. 
Then swiftly she shaped her bow and sent back 
across the water the answering message of her own 
heart, a message clean of bitterness and sorrow. 


3 °° 


BLACK GOLD 


And Beaubien heard, or seemed to hear, for through 
an instant his bow poised in the air and he looked 
across his shoulder. Then onward he swept, more 
violently, into the wild, transcendent theme which 
could end only as must all things earthly. 

Gilvert labored on, like one whose senses are 
numbed, towards the white thrashing waves. 

“Look. Look!” Marcile exclaimed, as her bow 
fell from her fingers; and she turned to cling to Rupert 
Harne, half hiding her face upon his breast, yet 
following the course of the kayak which suddenly shot 
past the black line of the promontory, to stand for 
an instant silhouetted against the slate-grey sky. As 
the frail craft tipped the crest of a wave it seemed for 
an instant buoyed above the earth, and from this ex¬ 
alted place came the last exalted cry of Beaubien’s 
music. It was so like worship in death that Marcile 
buried her face in her hands, and her hands against 
the man’s throbbing heart. 

When she looked again, there could be seen only the 
greyish water, and the blinding swirl of greyish mist 
which drove across the sky like a curtain, as though 
seeking to blot out forever the cruelty of mankind. 
Still clinging to the man, the girl looked into his eyes 
with holiness shining through her tears. 

“Now it is only you!” she whispered wistfully, rev¬ 
erently; and Harne drew her shrinking form towards 
him, fiercely, pathetically, kindly. 

They knew that at last Abner Gilvert had paid to 
Beaubien the price for the dead Maxine. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


RETURN OF SUNSHINE-SHADOWS 

From the heights, Marcile and Harne looked down 
upon the storm-tossed harbor of Valdez; they saw 
the Sitka steamer riding low through the waves; they 
saw figures hurrying about, like great ants lashed by 
the wind; but through it all the only message was one 
of life's unfailing trust. 

So they wandered the heights, caring little for the 
world below; and when at length they came down 
into the wind-swept streets with the toils of the world 
for the meantime thrust far behind, they came upon 
another procession, entering the Golden Arms. 

At the head was a girl; behind her was Ramsey 
Doolittle, walking between Garry and Tom Harlow, 
and there was something in the man’s manner which 
made of him a prisoner, though no hands were upon 
him. At the rear came Swedevaris Pellinger. 

Slowly they filed into the Golden Arms, into the 
only sitting-room which the place could boast; then 
Garry swung about and locked the door, and he stood 
with his back against it. 

Marcile’s eyes widened in astonishment. 

“Elise. Elise!” she exclaimed, as she ran to meet 
the girl who led that procession. 

301 


3°2 


BLACK GOLD 


“Sunshine-Shadows!” Harne cried out. “You, in 
the North?” 

“Of course I am in the North,” Elise Apperson re¬ 
turned in a business-like way, “but won’t somebody 
kindly introduce us. I have been dramatic long 
enough.” 

Doolittle stared, with head out-thrust. In his flash¬ 
ing eyes there was hatred, driven out swiftly by the 
consciousness of defeat. In this moment, when the 
power of wealth no longer buoyed him aloft, there 
was the stamp of cowardice on the face of Ramsey 
Doolittle. 

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. 

“Elise Apperson,” the girl turned upon him coldly, 
“daughter of the late Samuel Apperson of Chicago. 
That should be enough for you to know, Ramsey 
Doolittle. You broke him, didn’t you? And his heart 
as well. But not his daughter. I have never for¬ 
gotten, Doolittle, that you practically killed my father 
years ago. So I have been waiting for you by the 
roadside. It has taken me months and months to pre¬ 
pare a proper reception for you, but now you may sit 
back and try to keep yourself under control, . . . 
for, Mr. Ramsey Doolittle, you have to get out of 
the North, and stay out.” 

The man’s lips parted in a mirthless smile. 

“There’s nobody alive can make me do it,” Doolittle 
flared, but Elise waved him into silence. 

“Except myself, perhaps. Now, Doolittle, I am 
going to talk plain, then you are going to pack your 


RETURN OF SUNSHINE-SHADOWS 303 

grip and catch that steamer for Sitka to-night, and you 
are never coming here any more. Listen. You are 
a crook, of the worst kind, though the world calls you 
a financial king. That is how you broke my father, 
and why I have been waiting for you. How I heard 
about your scheme to steal the coal lands in the Chitina 
Valley does not matter. Just remember that I have 
agents in New York, and that they are keener in my 
service than they are in yours. I left it to them to 
find out for me how you were blocking Mr. Harne on 
the money markets, while I came north to see the type 
of men who were working with Mr. Harne. When 
I found, Doolittle, that they did not belong to the crook 
type of business man, and were not just grabbers like 
yourself, the rest seemed very simple. . . 

“But you’re in it as deep as I am, woman. What 
you growling about?” Doolittle interrupted, though 
fear was showing through the red of his countenance. 

“Of course I am in it, to the same extent that any¬ 
body gets mud on their shoes when they set a trap 
in the dirt. But you, Ramsey Doolittle, stepped into 
the trap. To be plain, it was myself who saw to it 
that Mr. Harne called upon me in Seattle in the reg¬ 
ular way with his proposition. He was instructed 
through Everington & Fargus, enemies of yours, 
Doolittle, to call upon me. But he did not know me as 
Miss Apperson, neither did you when you came along 
with your coward trick of blocking him. It was my 
mother’s name I was using, if you would like to know. 
You tried to force me not to back Harne, did you 


3°4 


BLACK GOLD 


not? Then when you found I was ready to advance 
him a few hundred thousand at once, you . . . stepped 
into the trap. You offered me a place in your syndi¬ 
cate to run the Alaskan coal fields. . . 

“And you took it,” Doolittle burst out, with anger 
marring his features. “You think to trap me, but you 
are caught in the same trap, little fool.” 

Garry stepped over swiftly and took the man by 
the throat. 

“Remember, Doolittle, you are talking to a lady,” 
he whispered so that all might hear. “The skids are 
under you, and you are going down, but we want to 
let you get out alive. That is all.” 

“Little fool, perhaps,” Elise laughed softly, “but 
when you made that offer to me, to let me in on your 
syndicate, there was a government official less than 
six feet from you, who took down every word of your 
conversation. You convicted yourself so thoroughly 
of illegal syndicating that the government officials 
took quick action. An official came north on the 
same boat with me to cancel all your holdings and to 
see that you get out of the country. Now, Hart, 
you may open the door. Exeunt, Ramsey Doolittle 
and followers. . . .” 

“Just a minute,” Harne stepped forward with a 
gesture which brought a little extra cringing to Doo¬ 
little’s pose. 

“Guard the door, Hart,” he spoke calmly, “and 
this is just in case Doolittle feels his fangs have not 
been entirely drawn. . . . Doolittle, you can take back 


RETURN OF SUNSHINE-SHADOWS 305 

this memory with you, to cherish to the end of your 
days. It is the ante-mortem statement of the man 
Parks. Suppose I should read it now, to the mob 
which you still see on the street, what do you think 
would happen, Ramsey scoundrel ?” 

Doolittle laughed, harshly; then attempted to 
straighten his shoulders. 

“Read it, and be damned,” he burst out. “There is 
nothing in my life that I fear.” 

“Very well, Hart,” Harne was still emotionless, 
“call in two or three of the least excitable, and I 
will read to them Parks’ statement of how Doolittle 
drove Gilvert to the point of attacking him. Gilvert 
killed; Doolittle was the power behind. Perhaps after 
all it is the simplest way to rid the world of a menace.” 

Garry opened the door; but Doolittle threw himself 
across the room before it. 

“For God’s sake, don’t,” he exclaimed, “if you have 
any love for human life whatever. . . .” 

“Then you don’t want to be cast to the lions?” 
Harne asked coldly. 

Doolittle shivered; and he still attempted to bluster. 

“They wouldn’t be fair with me,” he protested. 

“No, they would probably kill you outright, instead 
of slowly, by inches,” Harne reflected, “for when 
one comes to think of it, Gilvert was a saint compared 
with you, Doolittle. He killed because you drove him 
to it; while you . . . Call in some of those men, 
Hart. This is a thing they should know about.” 

Doolittle dropped to his knees and threw himself 


306 


BLACK GOLD 


before the opening door, and as Garry still pressed 
upon it slowly, he clung there, struggling with that 
physical strength he had so often despised. 

Slowly, persistently, Garry forced the door open, 
and still Doolittle clung to the knob, while his knees 
dragged across the uncarpeted floor. 

“Harne. Harne!” he pleaded, “you don’t know 
what you are doing. Those men would kill me; 
they’d tear me to pieces!” 

“Exactly,” Harne was still cold and deliberate. “It 
is the proper fate for your kind, unless, as I said 
before, they tore you up too rapidly. You remember, 
it is the fate you chose for me, knowing I was innocent. 
You forced Gilvert to kill Parks; and then, you would 
have turned me loose before the mob . . . Hart, the 
door!” 

Doolittle screamed a little this time; then he turned 
a frantic glance towards Swedevaris Pellinger. 

“Pellinger, for God’s sake, don’t stand there,” he 
cried. “Can’t you do something?” 

Pellinger’s gaze met his firmly, coldly. 

“Yes, Doolittle, there is something I can do,” he 
said, in much the tone which Harne had used, “I can 
remember that you forced me into the position where 
I stand to-day. You forced me to be a traitor to 
Harne. You forced my hand, as you forced every 
other person you touched. Doolittle, you probably 
have never made a friend in the world; and from now 
until the end of your days you will know it. Yes; 


RETURN OF SUNSHINE-SHADOWS 307 

there is one thing I can do, and that is help pick your 
bones.” 

Even the last remnant of bravado was swept from 
the pose of Ramsey Doolittle, as he crouched upon 
his knees, with hands clinging to the knob of the door, 
and with some of the curious mob already peering in 
from the corridor beyond. Those faces were dark 
and forbidding; they were still stamped with the vio¬ 
lence which the swiftness of death and the turbulence 
of the storm had brought to their midst; and now, 
as Ramsey Doolittle looked about him and saw only 
coldness and hatred on every hand, he gave a little 
moaning sound and slipped to the floor. 

Garry closed the door sharply in those curious faces. 

Harne looked across at Pellinger, and found that 
his face was hard. 

“You will do as you say?” he asked. “You will 
pick his bones ?” 

Swedevaris Pellinger nodded swiftly. 

“As heaven’s above me, I will do it,” he vowed, 
“unless there are other vultures to beat me. But you 
know, Harne, Doolittle has a host of enemies, each 
one ready to pick his bones. He has commanded by 
fear and not by affection or justice; and now, what a 
flocking of vutures there will be!” 

Pellinger’s laugh was high and cackling; and from 
the floor at his feet there came a little whimpering 
sound. 

“Oh, Swede, you wouldn’t do that,” Doolittle was 


3°8 


BLACK GOLD 


pleading, with all the pride stripped from him forever. 

Pellinger studied him for a moment, as he might 
observe some curious object; then he stirred the body 
with his foot. 

“Just to think,” he said, “that sometimes the world 
does play fair in the end. You win, Harne. I’m 
through, because I was Doolittle’s coward. And I’m 
through for good. When I have picked this thing’s 
bones, I can die in peace.” 

Harne stood looking down upon the cringing figure 
at his feet, and he, too, seemed to be gazing upon the 
man in a detached way. 

“What do you think, Hart,” he asked, at length, 
“do we cast him to the lions, or to the vultures?” 

Garry prodded Doolittle’s ribs with the toe of his 
boot, and he likewise appeared to reflect. 

“He is fat and pudgy,” Garry said, “he would be 
great sport, I fancy, for the lions, for they are whin¬ 
ing now just outside the door. Still, I think the 
vultures would make a neater and cleaner job of it. A 
swift passing out at the hands of the lions really would 
not be just. The only fit punishment for Doolittle is 
to be compelled to live, to watch the slow crumbling 
of the wealth which he has used so unjustly.” 

Harne nodded sharply. 

Shortly the officer came, and he took the cowering 
figure of Ramsey Doolittle from their midst. He 
took, as well, the papers which were ultimately to 
bring about the man’s complete ruin. 


RETURN OF SUNSHINE-SHADOWS 309 

Then, when they had gone, Pellinger stood in the 
doorway, and his glance roved somewhat wistfully 
about the small circle. 

“I know,” he said slowly, “the old story about the 
stains which a man picks up when he travels with 
thieves. I can only ask that you think of me more 
kindly than you think of Ramsey Doolittle.” 

The door closed, and they heard his unsteady step 
passing down the corridor. In that sound was pathos, 
inseparable from the story of a man’s broken life; 
there was in it the message of creeping age; and 
there was, as well, something of the zeal of the vulture 
who had gone to pick the financial bones of Ramsey 
Doolittle. 

“Wolf eat wolf!” said Garry, with a laugh which 
he thought to make light and free from care. 

But already Harne seemed to have forgotten. For 
there, at his side, was Marcile, looking up into his 
eyes with that message which is older and more 
eternal than life itself. 

Garry looked at Elise Apperson, and the girl sighed. 

“The struggle is over,” she whispered, though there 
was something shining in her eyes like tears. 

“In that case,” said Garry, “there is nothing like 
following the example of one’s elders.” 

So he stepped closer and leaned above those spar¬ 
kling eyes until he knew the wavering light was not 
the shimmer of tears, but that it was the flaming 
signal of some secret message of happiness. 


3 10 


BLACK GOLD 


. . Or like showing discretion,” said Silent Tom 
Harlow aloud, as he stepped to the doorway and passed 
quietly beyond. 

For a time he stood there, while the gale whirled the 
dust of the street about him; then he sighed. Within, 
there was happiness; without, there was violence; but 
perhaps that was no more than the symbol of life 
itself. 


THE END 























AUG 11 1924 





































































